Reascension
by Besh4221
Summary: Two beings who were at the top of it all suddenly find themselves at the bottom. They must now regain their lost power and take down the one who would destroy the most powerful fighters in the universe. However they can. Discontinued for now.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Super Smash Brothers, or any of the characters included in the franchise. That all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc., neither of which I work for. I'm simply a poor college student on break who had a nugget of an idea and decided to see what came of it. Additionally, I own nothing I took from other video games. None of it's mine, I just took it and threw it all together, I promise.

**Prologue**

"I still don't see why _we_ have to be the ones to do this," one of them complained. "We've got far too much power to waste our time on something so simple as this."

"We do it because we were asked," the other replied. "It doesn't matter whether or not we want to."

"So you don't want to, either?"

"Of course not. But when given a command by _him_, obedience is the only option. There is no refusal."

"I still don't see what the entire point of this is in the first place."

"It doesn't matter what the point is! That's what I've been trying to tell you. All that matters is that we do what we are told, otherwise we won't live to see the light of another day."

"You've been watching too many movies and playing too many video games," the second one muttered. The first one ignored this and simply cracked his knuckles.

"Come on, it's almost time."

The second one sighed and followed the first out of their room, heading down a corridor that made it seem as though they were moving through deep space. And they may have been, for all they knew. The two of them had indeed been given unimaginable power by the one who had created them. Surely for two such beings, traveling through deep space was child's play.

Finally, they arrived at the huge double doors leading to their creator. The second one ran his fingers over the sea green swirling patterns that covered doors that were the color of indigo at their bases, and faded to sky blue at the top. However, from the side edges of the doors, the color changed to fuchsia toward the center. The knobs were golden and had raised silver patterns on them, and the entire structure seemed to pulsate with… life? Power? Knowledge? The second one chuckled at such a romantic thought before the first one grabbed one of the knobs and turned it.

The doors slid slowly open to reveal a vast room with a floor of clouds. The rest of the room was the color of the sky in midday, even though there was no sun. Birds flew around from time to time, their calls traveling far, but never echoing. "You have come," a thunderous voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time boomed.

"Yes," the first one said, and immediately both dropped to the ground.

"Rise," the voice said. "There is no need for such formalities today." Both complied and resumed their original stances, waiting. "Are you aware of the purpose for which I have summoned you?"

"No, liege, we are not," the first one responded.

"Nor are you entirely willing to fulfill my request." It was a statement, not a question. The first one looked to the second one, who hesitated.

"The only source of my hesitation, liege, is the lack of knowledge I have concerning your request," the second one said as smoothly as he could manage. "If I knew what it was my liege asked, then I would have no qualms nor hesitations."

"It is good that you have come, then, as I intend to tell you what I ask of you in full detail," the voice replied. Suddenly, the sky turned a much darker blue, and the clouds began to swirl around the two. The tiny tornado that formed moved in front of them and began coalescing into a figure that was taller than both of them and positively radiated power. _This power is the power that forged us,_ the second one thought. _Any who would dare disobey it are fools._

Suddenly, a flash of bright light blinded them. When their vision returned, the figure that had been forming out of the clouds was completely _there_ now, watching them. It may or may not have been clothed; since it was constantly flickering in and out of view, there was no way to know for sure. "You two are to participate in a tournament that gathers fighters from all over the universe and pits them against one another," the figure told them. Its voice retained that thunderous quality, though it was now at a much more tolerable volume.

"For what purpose, liege?" the second one asked before he could stop himself, and flinched as the figure looked at him silently.

"Your purpose is simply to test the abilities of the fighters," the figure finally replied. "I wish to expand my forces so that the universe may become better-protected."

"Surely my liege does not think us incapable of overseeing the universe for him?" the second one asked.

"No, that is not why I ask this of you," the figure replied. "I simply wish to lighten your burden. Furthermore, with there only being the two of you, oftentimes there are things to be discovered, knowledge to be uncovered, viewpoints to be considered that you both miss through no fault of your own. You see the viewpoints and gather your knowledge the way I created you to do so; that fault lies with me and me alone. This is my attempt to make up for that."

"Liege, we hold you in no way responsible for our shortcomings," the first one said immediately.

"Enough deliberation on this," the figure replied. "My request has been given, and my reasons given as well. Will you accept my request?"

The two looked at each other, then back to the figure, and nodded. The figure began laughing darkly, and the sky suddenly turned pitch-black. "Good," the figure said, and the second one vaguely suspected that this could either be all theatrics, or that their creator was doing something neither of them would ever have expected. "You two have failed me for the last time," the figure said. _Failed?_ the second one wondered. _What did we fail him in?_

"But you said that wasn't our fault!" the first one responded wildly. "You said that our failures were because of the way you made us!"

"You are a fool!" the figure thundered. "I made you two and gave you all the powers of creation. There should be nothing that you two together could not accomplish. But you failed me time and time again. I can forgive you no longer."

Before either of them could reply, the figure vanished from view, and they felt pressure all around them. Unbelievable pressure. It felt as though they were being forcefully compressed to one-one hundredth of their accustomed size. It felt as though this shrinking would be something that they could not reverse.

"What did we do?" the second one asked the first one. "How did we fail?"

"I…" the first one faltered, his voice becoming weaker as his sense began to break through his immediate fear. "I don't know."

All went black.

* * *

**A/N:** And here is the prologue to my latest idea. I really don't have much to say, other than that I hope you (the readers) like it. Also, I have two questions:

1) Do you like it?  
2) Who do you think these three characters are?

It isn't hard to answer the second question, honestly. I think you'll also like a couple of future elements of the story I'll be integrating. You should see it soon. Also (I guess I did have more to say), the entire idea for this story came around as I was watching a flash animation on Newgrounds called "Smash Kingdom Melee". One of the scenes in the animation talked about "tiers" that groups characters into categories based on their expected performance in tournaments.

The tier list I'm using is the most recent one from Super Smash Brothers Brawl, in which there are seven tiers: S, A, B, C, D, E, and F. If you'd like to see the list for yourself, this is the one I used: http :// super- smash- bros. wikia. com / wiki / Tier _ list # SSBB _ tier _ list (minus the spaces).

And with that, I'm done. See y'all at the end of the story.

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	2. Prologue 2

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Super Smash Brothers or any of the characters involved. It all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc.

**Note:** Reviews make everything better, though they will not affect the updating schedule. Expect a new chapter every Monday, between the hours of 12:01 A.M. and 11:59 P.M. EST.

**Prologue 2**

They awoke within seconds of each other.

"What happened to us?" One asked the other. They helped each other stand and then began to survey their surroundings. They were standing in a clearing surrounded by a ring of trees of no identifiable variety. They were bushy, leafy, and green. Something was off, though, about the clearing, and neither of them could quite figure out what it was.

"There's no wind," one of them said presently. "It's so still here…"

"We should get out of here," the other said. Both then began walking through the surrounding trees. Eventually, they came to a cobbled stone walkway. They walked along it until they came to a round courtyard with a smaller round flower garden. The flowers were white, and they took up all of the flower garden except for two strips of green, one dissecting the garden horizontally, and one cutting across vertically, though it was off-center, closer to the right edge of the circle.

The courtyard laid in front of a large, stately manor that looked to be made of large grey stones cobbled together in a manner that matched the walkway and the boundary of the small flower garden. It had a number of towerlike, silo-shaped attachments to the central building, and each had a red, pointed roof. The central building had a red roof as well, though it was flat. On the front of it was a symbol matching the small flower garden.

Additionally, around the symbol at six points were a fireball, a red-and-white ball with a smaller circle in the center, a running fox with what seemed to be a second tail coming out of its back, three triangles connected at the corners to make a larger triangle, a five-pointed star, and a bird perched upright with its wings spread.

The two of them looked at each other, then one of them shrugged, saying, "We may as well go inside. We can find out where we are that way." They walked up to the front doors and knocked on the door with the big, silver knocker. The big crimson doors swung inward silently, and the two of them walked into a hall that could've been as large as their creator's.

The hall's opulence defied all imagination, with high-vaulted ceilings, plush floors, cherrywood banisters, and a huge chandelier hanging from the ceiling. And everywhere to be seen was the same symbol that adorned the front of the central building and was the design in the flowers.

"Hello?" one of them asked. The word bounced around for a few seconds, then faded into nothingness. The room remained unchanged. "Is there anyone here?"

"That depends on what you're here for," a voice responded, and both snapped to attention at its forcefully authoritative tone.

"We're only here to find out what this place is so we can find out how to get back to where we came from," one of them replied.

"You talk too much," the voice responded. "Your name?"

"Astor Hamon," Astor replied, then blinked; it was as though he hadn't had a name until someone had asked.

"Your name?" the voice asked the other one.

"Raz Hamon," Raz replied, looking equally as shocked.

"What form of combat do you usually engage in?"

"I fight with swords," Astor replied immediately.

"Energy and hand-to-hand," Raz said next.

"Astor Hamon and Raz Hamon, welcome to the Super Smash Brothers tournament. It is your goal to ascend each tier and get to become the best and most powerful fighters in the universe. The final battle in each tier will be a tag team battle against the two top-ranked fighters in each. Once you ascend to the top, you will be given a chance to fight against the creator of the tournament.

"Your first battle will be tomorrow," the voice finished. "Someone will be along to direct you to your room, and there you will find what you need to fight."

Astor and Raz looked at each other silently until an odd tiny robot rolled up to them on treads. "Please follow me," it said, and the two of them did as it asked. Apparently, they were going to fight whether they wanted to or not.

"Might as well have some fun with this," Raz said with a grin.

Astor sighed. "Hopefully this will be able to get us back in touch with our creator, so that we can figure out what we did wrong," he replied, and Raz nodded.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 1: F

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Super Smash Brothers, or any of the characters included in the franchise. That all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc., neither of which I work for. I'm simply a poor college student on break who had a nugget of an idea and decided to see what came of it. Additionally, I own nothing I took from other video games. None of it's mine, I just took it and threw it all together, I promise.

**Warning:** There is gore in this chapter, though it is not of the bloody variety. There's no blood in the games, so there won't be any blood in the story. Chalk it up to the "rules", I guess. That's what I did. XD

**Chapter 1: F**

The next day dawned on the two fighters who hailed from an unknown area of the universe. All of the other fighters had been made aware of the new additions, but not all of the other fighters were extremely excited about it.

To be specific, the fighters from the more powerful families were not at all pleased with the addition of two fighters that came from a place none of them had heard of. It made the two new fighters, Astor and Raz, unknown entities, with unknown weaknesses.

The Super Smash Brothers tournament had been around for a long time, and over that time, a sort of hierarchy had been formed. All of the competitors in the first tournament were still competing, and it was those fighters that represented the more powerful families in society. There were ten of these families: Ketchum, King, Onett, McCloud, Falcon, Kong, Yoshi, Star, Hylia, and Aran. From these families came twelve fighters who, regardless of their rank in the tournament, were given some sort of respect due to their extreme longevity and dedication to the tournament.

There existed another hierarchy in the tournament, but this chain was determined entirely by those who betted on bouts between two fighters, and longevity or family influence had little if any bearing on the rankings. They were called "tiers", and there were seven of them; this was the basis of the tournament, and it was constantly changing as fighters won or lost in battles and the tier hierarchy was shifted accordingly.

But these two fighters, these Hamon brothers. Their family was virtually unheard of, and yet they were allowed to fight. One, Astor, used a sword, and the other, Raz, was much more of a melee fighter, using energy not unlike Ness and Lucas Onett's PK, as well as hand-to-hand combat. This was all that was known about them, and it made everyone, old and new families and fighters alike, nervous and not a little angry.

"What right have they to barge in and join?" one of the fighters from the Ketchum family, Chu, demanded. "They come from nowhere a day before the tournament starts, and are just… let in? What is he thinking?"

"I guess it doesn't really matter," Yoshi replied. "They're here, they're fighting. It's lucky that they got placed in the lowest tier automatically, so we probably don't have much to worry about. Ganondorf will probably be able to take care of them each individually. Probably even if they tag-teamed him. He's from the Gerudo family, after all. And while the Gerudos may not be as prominent as their cousin family the Hylias, there's no denying that they produce some good fighters."

"That is true," Chu conceded. "It just worries me… and irritates me, as well. I don't like that two nobodies can just come in and be placed in the tournament. We all had to go through countless extensive background checks and the like just to be considered to be in the tournament at all."

"I know," Yoshi responded. "We'll just have to wait and see."

* * *

"Astor!" Raz shook the sleeping man awake. "You're going to miss your first fight if you don't wake up soon."

Astor snorted, then sleepily opened his eyes, sitting up slowly. "My first fight?"

"Yes, in this stupid tournament," Raz replied impatiently. "You get to go first since you were recorded first. You're going up against someone named Ganondorf. He doesn't sound like much, but still. You can't fight him if you don't show up."

Astor nodded and got out of his bed, stretching. "Where is my outfit and weapon? We were told they'd be provided for us."

As if by way of answer, there was a flash of light in a corner of the room, and suddenly, there was a sheathed sword lying there, propped against the wall. Astor walked over and picked it up, unsheathing the blade. The blade was longer than his arm, yet when he held the hilt, it felt extremely well-balanced. It seemed to catch the light in a hypnotic way, and Astor saw on the hilt that its wrapping was of immensely fine quality. "Does it have a name?" he asked no one in particular, not expecting an answer.

"It is called the Murasame," the voice that had talked to them yesterday said, making them both jump. "It is a good blade, one it was determined would serve you well in the tournament, since you brought no sword of your own. Your fight will soon commence. Move to the center of the room."

"I'm hardly dressed for a fight," Astor said under his breath, but moved to the center of the room nevertheless. A circle of light appeared around him, and a number of those symbols, which Astor presumed was the symbol of the Super Smash Brothers tournament, rose out of the floor. They then began overlapping each other and going around Astor, making it look as though he was in the middle of a gyroscope. The light from the symbols grew brighter and brighter.

"Good luck, Astor Hamon," the voice said, and then Astor, the ring, and the symbols were gone.

"Where did he go?" Raz asked.

"He was transported to the Bridge of Eldin, where his fight will commence. Your fight will soon commence as well. Please move to the center of the room."

Raz did as he was asked, but before he was transported, he asked, "What of my energy? You mentioned last night that some changes would have to be made."

"Your energy has been classified into various categories, denoted by colored bands on your right arm. Tap each one of them to find out what category it is, and you will know what to do from there." Raz nodded and moved to the center of the room. The circle of light appeared again, and what happened to Astor happened to him. "Your opponent is Link," the voice said as the light got brighter. "Your battle will take place in the Temple of Hyrule. Good luck, Raz Hamon."

And then Raz was gone, and the room was empty.

* * *

Astor's vision slowly changed from white brightness as the light subsided. He dropped a short distance, landing on one knee on what looked to be a large bridge. It was twilight, and standing across the bridge from him was a large man dressed in dark clothing. He had a cape and a large sword with a wide blade that flared out at the end. The sword's sheath was as darkly colored as the man's clothing.

Astor looked into the man's face, taking in his orange-ish hair, his prominent nose, his small eyes. He also had a jewel in the center of his forehead, which made Astor raise an eyebrow.

"First battle, Tier F. Astor Hamon, wielder of Murasame, practitioner of what has been determined to be similar to the Mugen Tenshin Tenjin Mon fighting style versus Ganondorf Gerudo, wielder of the Execution Sword, practitioner of what has been determined to be a mixture of the Gerudo fighting style and many other styles. The battle is a stamina battle; it will continue until one or both fighters cannot continue any longer. Ready… Go!"

Ganondorf immediately ran forward. Astor raised an eyebrow; though Ganondorf's footsteps sent slight vibrations through the ground at each impact, he moved so slowly. Astor brought Murasame in a reverse grip to rest in front of him, and waited. Ganondorf got close, but then suddenly yelled, "Wizard's Foot!" He crouched, then shot forward much more quickly than when he'd been running, purple flames forming and flowing back over his outstretched foot and leg.

Astor blinked, then jumped into the air, performing a backward somersault and bringing Murasame to a defensive stance. "Dark Dive!" Ganondorf was in the air. He caught hold of Astor's forearm, then dragged him forcefully to him. Electrical shocks coursed through Astor, before Ganondorf flung him away with a knee to the gut. Astor's vision went dark temporarily, as though he were looking at the world through a dark purple veil.

"Come on," Ganondorf said as he landed heavily. "You haven't even touched me yet!"

Astor wiped the corner of his mouth, felt a coppery taste and spit. A red drop appeared on the ground. Astor's mouth tightened into a thin line, and he looked up at Ganondorf. "Fine," he said, dashing forward. Ganondorf raised his leg, seeming to charge up energy. Right as Astor got within striking distance with Murasame, Ganondorf's leg came down.

"Volcano Kick!" His leg came down, making an explosion on contact.

When the smoke faded, Ganondorf looked down, expecting to see Astor trapped underneath his foot. But there was nothing but ground under his foot, though he'd cracked the bridge. "What?" He looked around, then noticed on the shadowed ground something that seemed to be moving, getting larger. He looked up in time for his face to meet Astor's knee. Astor backflipped, landed, dashed forward again. Murasame flashed, went straight through Ganondorf's neck.

Instead of his head flying off like Astor had intended, he simply fell to his knees. There was no blood, though Ganondorf looked and acted like he'd been seriously injured. Slowly, Astor walked around to stand where Ganondorf was facing. He waited until Ganondorf looked up, then said, "Come on."

Ganondorf growled and spit, before standing. He swayed slightly, then fell backward to brace himself by leaning back on his leg. His hand curled into a fist, and dark purple energy began to swirl around and into it. Letting out a wordless roar, Ganondorf hurled his fist forward. Murasame flashed again, and his fist met the thin blade, which did not break.

Ganondorf blinked in shock. His Warlock Punch was usually a battle cincher! Yet this punk from nowhere had blocked it with this tiny sword… and with seemingly no effort on his part. "What are you?" Ganondorf growled. "That you can block my strongest attack with that toothpick?"

"None of your concern," was the response from Astor before he flicked Murasame forward, breaking off the attack. "Viper Thrust," Astor whispered, then thrusted, and Murasame went straight through Ganondorf's head, though there was still no blood. Ganondorf's body spasmed, then went limp. Astor withdrew Murasame, proceeded to wipe it off on his jacket, then realized that he had a jacket and an outfit. They were varying shades of purple and blue in color, and the jacket part was lavender with navy designs on it, extending down to his ankles. Underneath were his shirt and pants. The shirt was buttoned and a darker shade of purple, and his pants looked to be the color of indigo. His boots were the same color as his jacket, and he also had shoulder, elbow, and knee guards that were made of some light metal material and were darker than lavender but lighter than his shirt.

"Finish! Victor: Astor Hamon." The circle of light appeared around Astor, and the symbols appeared again. Astor looked at Ganondorf's still form, which vanished inside an ouroborostic dragon. They both vanished, and Astor reappeared inside the room he'd left earlier. He wondered how much time passed, then thought that it couldn't be that long since he'd left, since Raz wasn't back. _I wonder how he's doing_, Astor wondered before flopping into the bed on his back to rest. The battle had tired him, though it hadn't seemed to last that long. Ganondorf may have been slow and not gotten many hits in, but damn if he wasn't obscenely strong. Those few hits had hurt. Badly. Astor simply let himself rest, thinking of his "brother" Raz and how his fight was going.

* * *

Raz landed on one knee and found himself on a platform supported by columns. It was a bright day, and he could see that he was at one end of this temple's layout or whatever it was. In front of him were more pillars, and there was a platform on top of these pillars, and on top of that platform was a man with pointy ears and blonde hair. He wore a long green cap that matched his tunic, and wore white pants, brown boots, and had a shield with an ornate design on its face. Raz wasn't that familiar with the terms of heraldry, but he did remember what a charge was, and it appeared that the charge on this man's shield was the same as the symbol he and Astor had seen before entering the manor, the three golden triangles situated so that they made a bigger triangle with a smaller empty triangle in the center.

"Second battle, Tier F. Raz Hamon, practitioner of what has been determined to be similar to the Zangan-Ryu martial arts style and various forms of magic versus Link Hylia, wielder of the Master Sword. The battle is a stamina battle; the battle will continue until one or both fighters cannot continue any longer. Ready… Go!"

Link sheathed his sword and pulled out a bow from the quiver on his back, nocking an arrow and drawing the string in one smooth motion. He loosed it, and the arrow flew through the air, headed straight for Raz's head. He cocked his head to one side, and the arrow whizzed past, coming within millimeters of his neck. His eyes remained on Link, who had unsheathed his sword and was running toward Raz.

Raz jumped down from the platform he'd been standing on and ran toward Link, intending to meet him head-on. But at the last second, Link jumped into the air before gripping his sword in both hands and holding it point down, intending obviously to stab Raz from above.

Raz did a backhand spring before lashing out with his leg. He caught Link's shield and jumped with his other leg, bringing his left heel in a circle to crash into Link's temple. Link flew to the side and Raz landed lightly. Link stood slowly, then took one big slash. Raz jumped backward, but Link moved his sword again in a backward stroke, and caught Raz with the tip and edge of the blade. Raz dropped to one knee, hissing at the sharp pain. His hand instinctively went to where he'd felt the blade slash him, but was surprised to pull his hand away to find no blood staining his hand or his tight, dark grey sleeveless shirt.

He looked up to see the point of the Master Sword headed straight in between his eyes. He ducked, and the sword sailed right over his head. He looked down and tapped one of the bands on his arm, a yellow one, and lightning forked around his bicep, jumping down to his hand, which he thrusted upward into Link's chest. The jolt combined with the force of the thrust knocked Link away mid-attack, and Raz stood up straight.

Link ran at him again, but this time he threw some sort of winged boomerang at Raz. It came close, and Raz found himself sucked into the small tornado that the boomerang caused. It dragged him toward Link, who slashed once, twice, then began thrusting the sword in short strokes at high speeds. Raz could only barely dodge the attack, and the blade glanced off his body at various times.

Finally, Raz jumped backward to get out of the way. He tapped the orange band on his arm, and felt searing heat fill both his arms. He swung both arms in a windmill motion before bringing his hands together like he was cupping something. He brought his hands behind him, then thrust them forward. A huge fireball erupted from his cupped hands that scorched the ground in front of it. Link's scream was the only evidence Raz had that it had connected.

When the fire dissipated, Raz saw Link lying on the ground supine. Raz wondered if he'd won. Suddenly, Link's body twitched, and he sat up slowly. He painstakingly got to one foot, then snapped his head up. There was a cloud of dust in front of him. It twinkled, and then a black ball that glowed with rainbow light appeared in front of him. Immediately, he slashed hard, and the ball broke. The rainbow light moved to Link, making him glow with the colorful aura. Even his eyes glowed.

When he moved, it was like breaking that ball had given him newfound strength and speed. A lot of newfound strength and speed. He moved so quickly, he was in Raz's face before Raz could react. As Raz moved backward, Link's hand came up, and Raz could see the symbol that had been on Link's shield glowing on the back of his glove. One section glowed more brightly than the others, and then the entire symbol jumped out of his glove to surround Raz on two sides.

What happened next would be what Raz considered one of the most painful moments of his life. All he could feel was slashing, and all that came were more sword strikes. It was like they'd never end. Suddenly, they ended abruptly, only to be replaced with a bodily strike by Link. Raz went flying. He landed hard on his back, sliding for quite a distance. When he finally came to a stop, he felt horrible pain. But he could still tell that there was no blood. It was so odd.

He laid there, dazed, and could hear someone counting. They were at four… He slowly sat up, clutched his head. "Ugh," was all he said. The pain was everywhere. Quite rapidly, his pain changed to anger, and he surged to stand up. He tapped the golden band on his arm, and the face of a clock appeared under him, infusing him with a golden glow. He looked outside of the circle formed by the clock face to see Link moving toward him as though in slow motion. "Let's see how you like dealing with someone faster than you," Raz said. He dashed forward, tapping the lightning and fire bands on his arm at the same time. He was in Link's face in a second, smashing his fiery, electrified fist into it. Hard. Link went flying backward, skipping like a rock thrown over a lake. When he stopped moving, he did not get back up.

"Finish! Victor: Raz Hamon." The circle of light appeared under Raz's feet, and the symbols appeared again. They both vanished, and then Raz was back in the room, and could see that Astor was back and was sleeping.

"Lucky Astor," Raz said quietly. "He doesn't even look like his fight was all that hard." He flopped down onto his own bed and was asleep within seconds.

* * *

"What the hell happened?!" Luigi King demanded. "I thought these guys were chumps. Punks. Not that they'd come in here and take down one of the strongest fighters in the tournament and a fighter with one of the best Final Smashes!"

"We didn't think they would," Purin Ketchum replied. "They looked to have little real skill. No one expected it."

"This is ridiculous," Luigi muttered. "To see Ganondorf put so easily in his place… And then have Link be defeated so thoroughly even after he'd gotten that man with his Triforce Slash! If they defeat Falcon and you, Purin, as easily as they put away Ganondorf and Link, we could be looking at a complete upheaval of this entire tournament like when Fox and Marth decided to team up and took the first and second place in the last tournament."

"Please," Falcon said, walking over to them when he'd heard his name. "They won't be able to touch me."

"But Ganondorf fights just like you do," Luigi said.

"He does," Falcon acknowledged. "But I'm at least ten times faster than he is. And I've got about as much power. I'm no slacker, Luigi, you know that."

"I do know that, but what if it isn't enough?" Luigi challenged. "Both of them can move blindingly fast when they need to. The one that fought Ganondorf moved too quickly to see, and then the one that fought Link moved just as fast. We didn't see him until he'd smashed Link's face."

"I've also got my Rollout move," Purin put in. "They won't be able to dodge Falcon's Falcon Kick and Rollout at the same time."

Luigi looked unconvinced, but said no more.

His brother, Mario, came over with Zelda Hylia. "Guys, we may have a problem," Mario said.

"Why's that?" Falcon asked.

"I can't find Link or Ganondorf," Zelda replied. "Link hasn't returned to our room, and Ganondorf, since he's our cousin, has a room next to the one Sheik, Link, Toony, and I share, and he isn't in his room, either."

"You sure they're not elsewhere in the manor?" Purin asked. In response, Zelda raised her gloved hand, and the Triforce glowed on the back. Her section, which she'd said was the Triforce of Wisdom, glowed like it normally did. However, the other two sections, those of Courage and Power, showed up as a charred red color.

"The Triforce has never done that before," Zelda said. "My section doesn't even usually glow unless I'm in close proximity to either Link or Ganondorf. It's how we keep track of each other." Luigi, Purin, Falcon, and Mario all nodded; none of them knew the exact nature of the power that bound together the five fighters from the Hylia and Gerudo families, but they all knew that it bound them as deeply as blood bound Mario and Luigi or Purin and Chu.

"What do you think it means, then?" Falcon queried.

"I think the Triforce of Wisdom is telling me that its counterparts and masters are in deep trouble, and whoever got them in such deep trouble are going to have to be the ones to get them out of it."

* * *

Astor woke first, then saw Raz sleeping in his bed. He didn't look too bad, Astor supposed. He looked like he was in a deep sleep, though. Even dreaming; Astor could see Raz's eyes moving rapidly under his eyelids.

"Raz," he said quietly. "Raz, are you all right?"

"No," Raz moaned quietly. "Please… no, don't…"

"Raz," Astor said, laying a hand on Raz's shoulder and shaking him lightly. "Get up."

Raz's eyes snapped open and he shot into a sitting-up position, looking around wildly. His eyes almost immediately focused on Astor, and he relaxed. "So you're all right," he said in a mild tone, and Astor nodded.

"You don't look too much the worse for wear," Astor said, and Raz gave him a look that clearly said, "Neither do you." "Did your opponent really do so little damage to you? You look practically untouched."

"I could say the same to you," Raz replied. "You look like Ganondorf barely touched you at all."

"Ha, I looked a lot worse when I first got back, believe me," Astor said, scratching his head. "That guy hits hard. But what about the guy you fought?"

"Link?" Raz said. "If we could bleed and if sword strokes actually made marks, he'd have cut me into ribbons. A pile of bleeding ribbons. That Master Sword of his really smarts."

"That must be why we look okay, then," Astor said. "I thought the whole no-bleeding thing was something that I was hallucinating about. But apparently, it's against the rules of the tournament or something, so we just… don't bleed." Remembering when he'd spit blood, he amended quickly, "At least, not externally."

"It's weird, to be sure," Raz said. "It's so disorienting to feel the pain of a blow, feel it go through you or against you or whatever, only for there to be no physical evidence." Astor nodded in agreement.

"Astor Hamon, Raz Hamon. Your battle will soon commence. Please move to the center of the room."

"You know what I realized?" Astor said as they both walked to the middle of the room.

"What?"

"This is a team battle." They stood side by side, the circle appeared, the symbols encircled both of them, and the room stood empty once more.

* * *

Astor landed on one knee, Raz in a slight crouch. As they both straightened, they saw that they were standing on a road facing a rather muscular man stepping out of a blue racecar-type vehicle that had no wheels. He wore a skin-tight uniform and a red helmet with a black visor and a bronze falcon on the front. As he spotted them, he flashed them a two-fingered salute, which Astor and Raz acknowledge with a nod and a returned salute, respectively.

The man looked to his side, where a small red and white ball had shown up out of seemingly nowhere. It opened to reveal a lot of blue light, and suddenly where the ball was a round, balloon-like thing with large blue eyes.

"Final battle, Tier F. Astor Hamon, wielder of Murasame, practitioner of a style similar to the Mugen Tenshin Tenjin Mon, and Raz Hamon, practitioner of a style similar to Zangan-Ryu martial arts versus Captain Falcon, F-Zero champion and bounty hunter and Purin Ketchum, the Pokémon. The battle is a stamina battle; the battle will continue until neither team can continue any longer. Ready… Go!"

Captain Falcon moved first, running at Astor and Raz with a speed neither of them had expected. Purin had stayed behind, and had begun… rolling?

"You'll pay for whatever you did to Link and Ganondorf!" Captain Falcon yelled, and Astor and Raz looked at each other, confused. "Falcon Kick!" He crouched, and Astor had a flashback to fighting Ganondorf, and Ganondorf's Wizard's Foot. Also remembering that he'd followed it up with that Dark Dive and surmising that Captain Falcon and Ganondorf had similar styles of fighting, Astor said, "Dive to the side!"

As they dove to either side, Captain Falcon broke off and went after Raz. At the same time, Purin, who by this time was sparkling with stored energy, suddenly shot forward on a collision course with Astor.

Captain Falcon threw one punch, then another punch, both of which Raz blocked. Then he kneed Raz in the stomach, before launching punches in rapid succession. Raz's eyes narrowed as Captain Falcon's punches buffeted his face, chest, and stomach. It didn't hurt, but it was a major annoyance. Raz bared his teeth and hissed, "Hastega." He didn't know why he'd said that, but the clock face appeared beneath him again, and he felt that golden glow run through him once again. Suddenly, Captain Falcon's punches, which had before seemed blindingly fast, were now child's play to block.

He grabbed one fist, then said, "Thundara." It was as though the knowledge sprung to the forefront of his mind whenever he needed it, but he didn't care; the lightning jumped to his fist, and he jabbed Captain Falcon in the stomach, then the sternum, then the neck, then jackhammer-punched him in the face. Suddenly, he swung his leg up and around and caught Captain Falcon in a roundhouse kick to the side, sending the man skidding face first along the ground.

Purin had collided with Astor rather solidly, and had quickly followed that up with two kicks, then grabbed him. They flew up into the sky, then slammed down hard, Astor first. If his bones could break, he could've sworn that most of them would have when he impacted the ground hard enough (he felt) to leave a small crater in it. Purin jumped away, waiting for Astor to get up. He groaned, moving slowly to all fours, then looked up to receive a punch in the face, sending him flying. As he flew backward, he could sense Purin following him. Quickly growing irritated, he flipped himself upright, drawing Murasame from its sheath.

He laid himself out like a torpedo, then began spinning with Murasame pointing outward. Suddenly, he charged forward, tilting himself so that he was diagonal. He passed straight by Purin, who fell sharply with the blow. Astor was already moving again, however, still spinning rapidly. He hit Purin again, and again, and again, zooming at her from different directions. Finally, he stopped spinning and landed on the ground. He looked up to see her falling, and jumped. His sword moved once, twice, and then he flipped backward, kicking his leg out as he did so. Purin flew high up into the air, then came back down. Astor stood back, preferring to let gravity do its own work. She crashed into the ground hard, and lay there for a second. She stood slowly, and then… fell asleep. She breathed deeply, bubbles issuing from her nose every so often.

She seemed to become illuminated a couple of times, then woke up, looking a lot less battered than she should have been. "That actually hurt, Hamon," she said, grinning. "Wanna try it again?"

"I won't have to," Astor said, bringing Murasame in front of him in a reverse grip. He sprinted forward. Purin had enough time to jump once before Astor had purposely nicked her with Murasame's edge, just enough to knock her off-balance, before launching a kick straight into the middle of her back. She seemed to bend around his foot before flying into the air at a surprising speed, not unlike a ball that had been kicked extremely hard.

Raz saw that happen, and got an idea. He ran at Captain Falcon, who had by then recovered and was balling his hand into a fist. Raz saw fire charging around it, and tapped the silver band on his arm. His arm and fist immediately became cold as ice and rock-hard, and he slammed it forward to meet Captain Falcon's punch. "Falcon Punch!" An image of a flaming falcon appeared around his fist, and it met Raz's "Ice Guillotine!" An icy clamp appeared from Raz's fist, and it clamped around Captain Falcon's fist, stopping his punch short. He grinned at Captain Falcon, before beginning to pivot, dragging Captain Falcon with him. He spun faster and faster, finally releasing the bounty hunter, who shot toward the now-falling Purin. They collided with each other hard, flying even further away.

It was around this time that Astor and Raz noticed that they weren't on the road any more, but were on a platform that was headed for a large track that seemed to form an enormous loop. It was this loop that Captain Falcon and Purin crashed into, halting their flight. They fell, limp, toward the stage. Raz was about to say something, no doubt an attack, but Astor placed a hand on his arm. When Raz looked at him, confused, Astor said, "They've already been knocked out. Scorching them or doing whatever else won't change that. We won this battle."

Raz nodded, and the brothers watched the two fighters fall. They hit the platform and bounced slightly, and didn't move after that. "Finish! Victor: Team Hamon."

Instead of another circle appearing this time, however, a ball like the one Link had broken appeared in front of them. Raz moved forward, and said, "We probably should both break this."

"Why?"

"It seems like a good idea." Astor shrugged, and moved to stand one side of it. Raz moved to stand to the other side, and they both nodded. At the same time Astor struck the ball with Murasame, Raz punched it. It broke underneath their combined blow, and the rainbow light infused both of them.

"New Final Smash acquired! Astor Hamon: Final Heaven. Raz Hamon: Aerospark." The light faded, and that was all. The brothers looked at each other for a second, then jumped as the circle of light appeared underneath their feet. They turned at the last second to look at Captain Falcon and Purin. They didn't disappear immediately, so Astor and Raz got to see a racecar like the one that Captain Falcon had stepped out of come up beside the lifeless bounty hunter. This vehicle was black, though, and what got out of it Astor and Raz couldn't see. They looked to see Purin get hit with a black and purple ball this time, and she disappeared in a flash of red light. Then, the brothers were transported back to the manor.

When they arrived, the voice told them, "You have ascended Tier F, and are now in Tier E. The battles will remain the same in purpose, but your opponents will only get stronger. You will be able to use your Final Smashes whenever you break a Smash Ball." Then it was gone, and Astor and Raz looked at each other.

"Why do you think the ways Captain Falcon and Purin left were different than the ways they showed up?" Raz asked.

Astor shrugged. "I don't know. Did you happen to notice how Link showed up and then left?" Raz shook his head. "Well, I can't remember how it was for Ganondorf, either. It's odd, though. I mean, the ways we showed up and left were the same, so why weren't theirs?"

"I don't know," Raz said, then started. What Captain Falcon had said before they'd begun fighting suddenly came back to him. "I don't think it can mean anything good, though."

"Why not?"

"Remember what Captain Falcon said? About paying for what we did to Link and Ganondorf?" When Astor nodded, Raz said, "I think that whatever happened to Link and Ganondorf may have just happened to Captain Falcon and Purin."

"But what happened to them?"

"I don't know. But we need to find out."

* * *

"So you're good enough to join us as well."

"Where am I?" Falcon asked, rubbing his head. He looked around to see that he seemed to be sitting in the sky at night. He looked under him to see clouds, and above him to see nothing but stars.

"You are where all failed fighters come," a voice responded. Falcon looked around to see a figure standing there, seeming to flicker in and out of sight, since it was made out of clouds… or air. "This is your punishment for failing."

"What's my punishment? What did I fail at?" Falcon asked, before a horrible pressure began to press down on him. He felt the pressure slip under his skin. It was compressing everything in him, even who he was… He could feel blood spurting from his skin as his organs and blood vessels burst like party favors. His vision was going dark…

Before Falcon ceased to be, he saw three figures, two of whom he'd thought had vanished. One wore a black cap and clothes and had glowing red eyes, the other wore white robes, oddly enough. His hair was black, but the center of his head remained the same. Standing next to them was Purin… but it wasn't Purin. Her body was blue, and her eyes were as red as Link's and Ganondorf's. He couldn't speak, but his last conscious thought as he looked at his skin to find it slowly turning black was, _What's happening to us? And is this going to happen to every single person those Hamons defeat?_

That was it. With no more fanfare, Falcon was no more. Standing in a pool of blood was Falcon's body, with black skin. His uniform was now dark red, and his visor was black with a white visor. The bronze falcon had become dingy and tarnished, and his eyes were blood red.

"Welcome, Nega-Falcon," the figure said with a dark grin. "The old you was a failure, but you will succeed where he failed, won't you? Won't all of you?"

None of them responded, but it seemed the figure needed no response. He threw his head back, and his laugh echoed across the sky, across the universe.

* * *

**A/N:** And there's Chapter 1. Hopefully this satisfied you a bit more. I know I had a lot more fun writing this than the prologues; I'd been itching to write some real action. And now I did. And just think: Some of the tiers have seven fighters in them! *squee*

See if you can spot all the references I made to video game franchises outside Nintendo and Super Smash Brothers. It shouldn't be too hard. Here's a hint: I'm a very big fan of the CG animation series "Dead Fantasy" by Monty Oum. You should be able to take it from there. I did take some liberties with some things, but hey. It's my story, and I did say the styles were "similar", not exactly the same. :X

On a side note: "Purin" is the Japanese name for Jigglypuff, if the Rollout and reference to Rest weren't signs enough. ;P

With that, review, please! :D

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	4. Chapter 2: E

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Super Smash Brothers, or any of the characters included in the franchise. That all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc., neither of which I work for. I'm simply a poor college student on break who had a nugget of an idea and decided to see what came of it. Additionally, I own nothing I took from other video games. None of it's mine, I just took it and threw it all together, I promise.

**Warning:** Mild gore, again, no excessive bleeding.

**Chapter 2: E**

"You know, I wonder about everyone else in the tournament," Raz said to Astor the next day, in which neither of them had any fights. This was odd, though they supposed that, since they were new to the tournament and all, it was bound to be unfamiliar.

"What, do you mean how they do and how they move through the tournament?" Astor asked, and Raz nodded. Astor tapped his chin, and then said, "I suppose they fight each other just like we do. Or maybe they went through preliminaries to get to the places they're at right now."

"Preliminaries would make sense," Raz agreed. "But then, why didn't we go through those?"

"I'd imagine it'd be because we showed up the day before the tournament started. From what I understand, there are a good 30 or 35 fighters in this tournament besides us. That's bound to take more time than just one day."

"Hamon!" Astor and Raz looked at each other, eyebrows raised, then turned as one to see who'd called their surname. Walking up to them was a lanky man dressed in blue overalls, a green shirt, white gloves, and brown boots. His cap was also green and had an L in a white circle on the front.

"Can we help you?" Astor asked the man.

"You'd like to think you could, right?" the man demanded. "I'm going to tell you this now: I don't like you. At all."

Astor raised an eyebrow, but it was Raz who responded. "That doesn't seem very fair, since neither of us know you and have never met you before. I didn't think you were allowed to just… judge us like that."

"I am Luigi King," Luigi King replied authoritatively. "I've been here since the very first tournament! I'd think that that would command some respect. Furthermore, it makes me very entitled to judge you."

"On what grounds?" Raz demanded. Luigi blinked.

"On the grounds that I have seniority over you, and the perspective and good judgment that comes with experience. I've watched you fight, and I don't think you two are good fighters."

"Because we're new?" Astor asked.

"Precisely." Luigi nodded, as though surprised it had taken the two Hamons this long to figure it out.

"Well then," Astor said, looking to Raz, who shrugged. "I guess we'll have to show you differently. I look forward to fighting you."

"Ha, good luck even getting to me," Luigi scoffed. "I'm in Tier C, you two are in Tier E. You probably won't make it past the tier you're in now."

"Is there a tier list we can look at to see who we're supposed to be up against?" Astor asked, and Luigi smirked.

"Maybe there is, maybe there isn't," he replied with a shrug. "I suppose you'll just have to look for yourselves." With that, he turned on his heel and walked away. Raz stepped forward, perhaps to call after Luigi, but Astor grabbed his forearm.

"Don't bother," Astor said at Raz's questioning look. "He isn't even worth it. Obviously, he's used to being on top, even if he never got past Tier C. He's an old fighter, so he gets to be a jerk to other, newer fighters. I'm pretty sure he acts like that toward everyone else as well, except the other fighters that have been here as long as he's been."

"So he's basically one of those better-than-thou types, even though he isn't actually that good a fighter himself," Raz said, and Astor nodded, smiling dryly. "Tier C… isn't that only two tiers above ours?"

"Apparently, two tiers make all the difference."

* * *

"I think we should try to talk to the other fighters," Astor said as he and Raz made their way through the manor. "See what we're up against. Not to mention that it wouldn't be a bad idea to make some friends, so that people like Luigi don't stay rooted in dislike."

Raz's upper lip curled. "I don't really see the point," he refuted. "If people don't like me or us, then that's that. Trying to make them like us would be a waste of time, wouldn't it? We're here to find our creator to make up for whatever we failed at, even though he said we hadn't failed."

"Who's to say that some of these other fighters wouldn't be an immense help in achieving that end?" Astor shot back. "Just because there are two of us doesn't mean it should have to be the two of us alone. Besides, these people seem to think we're at fault for those disappearances, remember? It'd probably make it easier to prove ourselves innocent if we had people on our side."

Raz waved a hand. "Whatever, Astor. If it's what you want, then we'll play nice with the other Smashers."

"Smashers?"

"Well, yeah. I figure it's a good name for the fighters in the Super Smash Brothers tournament," Raz replied with a shrug. Astor reciprocated the shrug, and they made their way toward what the voice that announced their battles – leading them to call him the Announcer – had told them was the lounge where fighters could engage in recreational activities in between matches.

They walked in to find a man dressed like Luigi, except his shirt and cap were red, and his cap had an M on it instead of an L. Also in the room was a girl in a flowing pink dress, a girl with pointed ears like Link's in a pale lavender dress, and a huge ape in a red tie. They were sitting around a circular glass table, looking completely at ease.

The ape was the first to notice the Hamons' entrance, and pointed it out to the others, all of whom turned and stood to face them. Raz and Astor watched them warily, and the four "Smashers" watched them silently.

Finally, the girl with the pointed ears said, "You're the Hamon brothers, right?" Astor and Raz nodded, and the girl moved forward, holding out her hand. "Zelda Hylia," she said, and Astor grasped her hand, gently kissing the back. He didn't know why he did it, it just seemed like something he should do, something she seemed to expect in her appearance and manner. To his surprise, she giggled and blushed lightly, before moving onto Raz. He did the same thing, but Zelda didn't giggle, she simply smiled and said, "It's a pleasure to meet the two of you."

The brothers introduced themselves, and the red-shirted man held out a hand to them, introducing himself as Mario King. The ape introduced himself as Donkey Kong, and the girl in the pink dress said that they could just call her Peach.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you," Astor said, and Raz nodded.

"Likewise," Mario replied. "I must say, you two made quite short work of Tier F. I was impressed."

Astor gave a half-smile, but Raz said, "Your brother Luigi was distinctly less impressed."

Mario sighed. "Luigi's been like that since the last tournament, even to Zelda and Peach here. He feels that he's entitled to be treated like royalty, though where we're from, we're simply plumbers. Plumbers who are extremely good at fighting, but plumbers nonetheless. He just doesn't like that, even though he's been in every tournament since the beginning like DK and I have, he's never made it to the top. He doesn't quite realize that just because he's a better fighter than most of the Mushroom Kingdom and has more experience fighting in the tournament, doesn't mean he's the best Smasher."

"So you do call yourselves Smashers?" Raz asked, and Mario nodded.

"It makes sense, given that this is the Super _Smash_ Brothers tournament," he replied with a laugh, and Raz looked at Astor smugly. Astor rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored his brother. "Anyway, I'm sorry for how Luigi acted," Mario continued. Astor and Raz both looked at him, surprised. "Regardless of where you come from, how you fight, or what happened to Falcon, Purin, Ganondorf, and Link, you should be treated with the same respect that we all are."

"Thank you, Mario," Astor said. "I… we both really appreciate that."

Mario smiled and nodded, then said, almost as an afterthought, "Speaking of which, I wonder if you know anything about the disappeared Smashers."

"Nothing at all," Raz replied. "The only thing we noticed was that, with Falcon and Purin, at least, the way they left the fight arena was different than the way they appeared. I didn't see Link leave at all, since I left before him, and Astor said that he doesn't remember how Ganondorf left."

"I guess it would be more accurate to say I don't remember how he arrived," Astor said suddenly. "I remember that he left inside of a snake/dragon thing, but I don't remember how he got there."

Zelda frowned, and said, "You don't know anything at all about where they could've been taken?"

"No, but judging from your questions and Falcon telling us we were going to 'pay for what we did to Link and Ganondorf,' they haven't been seen," Astor responded.

"Right," Zelda said, nodding. "I haven't seen Link or Ganondorf, and neither has Sheik or Toony. And…" she held up her hand, and the design of triangles appeared on the back of her hand like it had Link's.

"That showed up on Link's hand when we were fighting," Raz said. "We also saw it on the front of the manor."

"It's the symbol of us Hylias, as well as our cousin family, the Gerudos," Zelda said. "It's the Triforce. An ancient artifact that the goddesses bestowed upon Hyrule in a time lost to history. Ganondorf, Link, and I are connected in that we each have one piece of it, and since Toony is an alternate-dimensional version of Link, and Sheik and I are two who live as one, they're connected to the Triforce as well. But the sections that belong to Link and Ganondorf, those of Courage and Power… They've faded. I don't know what that means, but I have a good idea, and it's nothing pleasant." She paused.

"It also means that you two, since you're the ones who contributed to their disappearance, have to be the ones to find them. The Triforce has to be restored to its original integrity, or things that are not at all agreeable will begin to happen. That much is certain."

"But I don't know where they went," Raz replied.

"It's kind of hard to find them because of that little snag," Astor added.

Zelda rolled her eyes, which seemed extremely unbecoming, though neither Astor nor Raz could quite figure out why. "I'll help you try to figure it out, you know," she said. "I'm sure that, being the crown princess of Hyrule as well as the possessor of the Triforce of Wisdom, I can find a way to track them down."

_So she's a queen-to-be_, Astor mused. He said aloud, "Your assistance is much appreciated, Your Highness. I'm sure we'll think of something."

"Oh, there's no need for titles here," Zelda said, waving a hand. "I simply mentioned my lineage because, in Hyrule, all members of the royal family are trained in the arcane arts. My own training, plus the knowledge provided me by the Triforce of Wisdom, should be enough with your efforts to find them, as well as Falcon and Purin."

* * *

Astor and Raz made their way to their room late that night, having spent the rest of the day exchanging stories with Mario, DK, Peach, and Zelda. "That was fun," Raz commented as they flopped into their beds.

"Aren't you glad I said that we should try and make friends?" Astor commented, laughing when Raz sent a rude hand gesture by way of response. "Come on, you know you liked talking with them," Astor said, and Raz sighed.

"Fine, Astor, yeah, I don't regret spending all day with them. But you know," Raz said, pretending to contemplate something. "I could've sworn that you were awfully sweet on Zelda. She is a princess; there's a lot to be said for royalty, you know."

"Shut up," Astor replied, scowling. "Don't say things like that about her."

Raz raised his hands defensively. "Alright, alright, I was just saying. She also seemed to be rather caught up in you," he added, a smirk on his face.

"I could say the same thing for DK," Astor responded, and Raz blinked. His mouth worked, but no words came out. After a few minutes of this, Astor burst out laughing. "Okay, so not really DK, but will you stop about Zelda now?" Raz nodded, a scowl on his face now. "Oh, don't act so devastated," Astor teased. "DK's a good guy."

"Astor, he's a primate," Raz said dully. "Our species are not exactly compatible."

"But if they were…?" Astor said, mostly teasing. Raz responded by sending him another rude hand gesture, and Astor laughed. "Good night, Raz," Astor said, and Raz grunted in response. Then, the Announcer's voice appeared.

"Raz Hamon, please prepare for your battle against Samus Aran. Move to the center of the room."

"But I'm tired," Raz grumbled, but following the Announcer's instructions anyway. As soon as he got there, he was gone in a mass of symbols. Astor sighed, not wanting to go to sleep in case he had to fight as well. But the Announcer had left. Astor didn't want to be asleep unless his brother came back, so he got up and left the room, heading for the lounge, where he'd seen a large screen that he'd been told other Smashers could watch current battles on.

He got there to find Zelda, Sheik, and Toony sitting on the couch in front of the screen, watching as Raz appeared, followed by who Astor presumed must be Samus Aran. "Hey," he said quietly, causing Zelda to spin around. When she caught sight of him, she smiled and waved for him to come over and sit down with them.

"Hello, Astor," she said as he seated himself next to her. "We wanted to watch your brother fight, to see if we could get some idea of how to fight him and, by extension, you. You two are bound to have some similarities in fighting, so… we'll see."

Astor shook his head, but did not comment except to say, "Will we fight soon?"

"More than likely," Zelda replied. "I'm in Tier D, Sheik in C with Luigi, and Toony's in Tier B."

Astor looked at Toony, who looked back at him with big, catlike eyes. "That's impressive," Astor said, holding out a hand, which Toony shook. "I look forward to fighting the highest-placed Hylia," he said, and Toony smiled and nodded.

Zelda smiled at the both of them and said, "Yes, we're all very proud of him for doing so well. But, speaking of Hylias, we wanted to show you something." At Astor's questioning look, Zelda and Sheik both held up a hand. Instead of the same section glowing on both of their hands, Sheik's symbol was glowing in a different section. "He's got the Triforce of Power now," Zelda said. "And Toony somehow got Link's Triforce of Courage, despite having his own. So… Link and Ganondorf are… truly gone." She held up her hand again, and the red triangles were gone, the symbol looking normal.

She bit her lip, and Astor instantly leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her. Her body shook lightly, and he could hear her soft sobs. The sound of them tugged at his heartstrings. "Ganondorf and I… we were never all that close, but he's still family. And Link…" she shook her head and continued to cry. Sheik laid a hand on the shoulder that he could touch, and Toony grabbed one of her hands. The four of them stayed like that for a while, completely oblivious to the fight that was going on.

* * *

"First battle, Tier E. Raz Hamon versus Samus Aran, bounty hunter and wielder of the Chozo Power Suit. Ready… Go!" Samus immediately raised her gun arm and held it in her other hand as a ball of light began forming in front of it. Raz narrowed his eyes and ran toward her. He could see he wasn't going to get there before she could shoot it. The ball looked slightly electrical in nature, so he tapped the Lightning band, and let the electricity jump up and down his arm.

He continued to run, and Samus continued to charge her shot. Suddenly, the ball disappeared, and Samus jumped, flipping once, then jumped _again_, flipping many more times. She landed behind him and shot a missile at him. As he turned, it picked up speed and, out of reflex, Raz punched it as it came within striking distance.

The missile detonated on impact, and the explosion sent Raz flying over the ground. He quickly moved past the edge of the platform and looked down to see nothing but lava. _What_ is _this place?!_ He tapped the turquoise band on his arm and thrust his arm out, palm spread. A huge burst of wind exploded from his hand, pushing him back up to the platform. He landed and straightened to find himself staring in the barrel of Samus's gun arm.

On instinct, he ducked and kicked upward, knocking Samus off her aim as she discharged her shot. The huge ball shot into the dark, headed straight for a wall of pouring lava. It punched a hole in the lava before it detonated, creating a bubble that burst, raining molten rock and flames down on Raz and Samus. Tapping the Fire band, he punched and kicked at splashes of lava, counteracting the flames with his own. He managed to deflect most of them, and then jumped backward as the last few splashes landed on the ground around him.

At the feel of searing heat behind him, Raz turned around and promptly swore. An enormous wave of lava was heading straight for them, and Samus was already running toward a small cylindrical contraption with two sliding doors. Raz growled and ran after her, tapping the Ice band as he did so. He didn't think he was going to catch her, but he was going to try. He jumped and grabbed the edge, flipping himself over it into a kneeling position.

He jumped onto the highest platform to find the doors closing. He grabbed the top edge and shoved it down, vaulting over it to crouch inside with Samus. He watched the lava flow past outside and wondered why in the world people fought in places like these. He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until Samus said, "This is where I fought Ridley. It's Norfair. The tournament takes venues from most of the fighters involved. Like the temple where you fought Link; that's in Hyrule, where Link is from."

"Oh… er, thanks," Raz said, and Samus nodded. Suddenly, the lava was gone, the doors were lowering, and the chamber was disappearing. The lava must be gone. Raz and Samus jumped down to opposing platforms, and turned to face each other.

"All right, Raz Hamon," Samus said. "Charge one shot, and whoever's still standing will be the winner of this match."

"Really?" Raz asked, surprised. Samus nodded.

"We won't both be able to dodge the lava forever," she replied, pointing down. Raz looked and started; the lava was directly underneath his feet, making the edges of the platform he was standing on steam and hiss. "Charge your shot," Samus said again, charging her own as she said it. Raz nodded and tapped the Fire and Lightning bands again, willing the electricity and heat into his right fist. As Samus's charge got bigger and bigger, Raz's hand sparked more and more, and got hotter and hotter, until it was glowing red.

Samus's shot winked out of existence before it discharged with an exploding sound. Raz drew his hand back, and then punched it forward, yelling, "Lightning Flame!" The lightning and fire exploded outward from his fist in an unraveling spiral that undulated wider and wider before suddenly collapsing on a point that met Samus's charged shot head-on. The resulting cataclysm engulfed both Raz and Samus in blinding light and deafening sound, making the ground underneath them seem to crumble and fall away. Raz fell to his knees, his eyes practically bleeding tears. He had no way of knowing where Samus was or what had happened. All he could do was wait until the reaction wore itself out.

After what seemed like an eternity, the light dimmed and the sound faded, though Raz wasn't quite sure he'd ever get his hearing entirely back. As the spots faded from his eyes he blinked a couple of times. He still couldn't hear anything, but the ringing in his ears was fading as well.

His sight returned in full before his hearing did, and when it did, he still couldn't hear anything. He looked to where he'd seen Samus standing when she was charging her shot, and saw her lying prone on the ground. Her armor was smoking slightly, and Raz vaguely realized that his clothes were smoking as well. He jumped off of the platform and ran across the ground to get to hers. As he ran, the Announcer said, "Finish! Victor: Raz Hamon."

A purple beam began to shoot down, covering Samus. Raz growled and jumped up on the platform. He picked her up as quickly as he could, and, right as his feet began to leave the ground, the Smash symbols came and illuminated both him and Samus. Raz sighed as he and Samus both disappeared in the light. _We're both safe_. He looked at her before the light flooded his vision, and noticed that her visor had been broken. Her eyes were slightly open, and from what he could see, they were very pretty.

* * *

Astor had been watching the battle since the lava wave, and he grinned when he saw Raz pick up Samus rather than let the beam take her. If he hadn't, she'd have disappeared. _Excellent, Raz. Excellent. The more we save, the better._ "Who won?" Zelda asked in a small voice muffled by Astor's shoulder.

"Raz did," Astor replied softly. "But get this: he saved Samus. He took her and they both disappeared his way. They'll both be back soon."

Sheik made a "hm" sort of noise, and Toony grinned widely. Zelda gave Astor a sweet smile that he found he really liked.

Soon, they could hear Raz's voice say, "Hey, is anyone up still?"

"In the lounge," Astor called, and Raz walked in, though without Samus. "Where's Samus?"

"I don't know," Raz replied with a shrug. "When I reappeared in my room, she wasn't with me. I guess she's in her own room."

"Thank you for saving her from… whatever's happened to the others," Zelda said, and Raz gave her a genuine smile.

"I didn't want another person to disappear when I could do something about it," he said. "She was leaving before I was. It was just a spontaneous idea."

"It was a good one," Astor said, clasping one of Raz's hands in his own hand. They gripped each other's hands, and Raz nodded. "One that we're going to have to make sure that we do after every fight. We don't want to lose any more Smashers."

"Even Luigi?" Raz said, raising an eyebrow, though his tone implied that he was joking. Astor grinned and tapped his think mock thoughtfully, then smacked his teeth and nodded. Raz gave a melodramatic sigh and said, "Fine… I guess if we have to, we'll save him, too."

"You two are such good people," Zelda said solemnly, then cracked a grin. Toony laughed, and Sheik's posture relaxed slightly; Astor was pretty sure he was smiling.

* * *

Astor awoke the next morning to: "Astor Hamon, your battle versus Yoshi will soon commence. Please move to the center of the room." Astor groaned, but did as he was asked, hoping that the transportation would wake him up. As he disappeared, he yawned and rubbed his eyes, feeling his hair and realizing that it was sticking out all over the place.

He rolled his eyes as he landed on one knee, and realized that he was completely dressed, Murasame on his hip. As he straightened, he laid eyes on a green dinosaur, which was definitely not what he was expecting. The dinosaur was staring at him, and finally said, "Purin was one of my best friends. You'd better have a good excuse for killing her."

Astor blinked; he didn't think Purin was _dead_. "How do you know she's dead?"

"I have my sources," the dinosaur snapped, and Astor got the strange hunch that Luigi was one of his "sources."

"Second battle, Tier E. Astor Hamon versus Tamago Yoshi, dinosaur companion to the King family. Ready… Go!" Instantly, Yoshi jumped and was encased in a green-spotted egg. The egg rolled toward Astor, picking up speed in a manner eerily similar to Purin's attack. Not intending to give Yoshi the chance to do what Purin had, Astor met the egg head-on, bringing Murasame straight down. The force of his strike broke the egg, stunning Yoshi slightly. Astor spun and struck the dinosaur with the flat of his blade.

Yoshi pivoted on one foot and slapped Astor with his tail. Astor hissed at the sting of the tail's tip, but didn't have much time to focus on it, since Yoshi had completed his pivot and headbutted Astor hard in the stomach. Astor flew backward, letting out a whoosh of air as he did so. He flipped himself upright only to find himself staring at a barrage of eggs. _What in the world?_ he thought as he began slashing at the eggs.

Some burst on impact, others exploded with much more force, making Astor flinch and lose his focus, which meant that he got hit with even more of these infernal eggs. Losing his patience, Astor's strokes became wider and wider, catching more and more eggs. This unfortunately meant that his vulnerabilities became wider as well, so he still got hit with more eggs.

Suddenly, he crouched low to the ground, waiting. He snarled, eyes flashing. Murasame glinted, and then he stood, his arm moving as fast as the eggs, his other arm curled in toward himself. Not one of them touched him again. Eventually the barrage stopped, only to be replaced with a much larger egg; Yoshi was doing his rolling egg maneuver again. Astor leaped and went upside down in the air, slicing at the egg in countless different directions.

He landed on the ground, the egg having rolled past him. He curled a lip and snapped, and the egg, which had turned and was rolling back toward him, promptly broke into tiny pieces. Yoshi jumped, but Astor was already in the air above him with Murasame in a reverse grip. He flipped, and shoved his foot downward. His kick collided with Yoshi's head, sending him plummeting back to the ground.

Astor landed a little bit away, eyes glinting. "Come on, Yoshi," he said. "I know you aren't hurt. Yet."

Yoshi jumped out of the hole, landing hard on his feet. His mouth opened, and his tongue shot out before Astor could react. The tip reached him and latched onto… something (Astor didn't know what), and then he was being dragged toward Yoshi's mouth. Just as he was about to get sucked in, Yoshi's head moved, and Astor found himself flying past the dinosaur. Then, he stopped slowly, and could sense Yoshi's head drawing back to bring Astor back.

He got close to Yoshi's head again, then found himself abruptly colliding with the ground. His momentum caused him to fly high into the air. Yoshi dragged him back down, and he crashed and flew up again. He crashed down, and flew up, and crashed down again. Then, he was dragged along the ground and up into the air again as Yoshi jumped.

He didn't know what happened next, but he assumed that Yoshi had swung his head around and finally released Astor… straight into the ground. Astor bounced up slightly, and Yoshi plummeted downward before fluttering his feet against Astor's back and head.

Finally, Yoshi left him alone. Astor's head pounded, and his breathing was heavy. He stood up slowly, and through half-lidded eyes saw Yoshi's tongue headed for him again. This time, however, he caught the tip and pulled Yoshi. True to its nature, his tongue contracted, and Yoshi shot forward to have his face collide with the butt of Murasame's handle.

"Not again," Astor whispered; his eyes were glowing. "One time was enough." He yanked on Yoshi's tongue – he hadn't actually let go of it – and began swing Yoshi around. He spun faster and faster, and Yoshi's tongue extended further and further. Suddenly, Astor swung upward, and Yoshi flew into the air. Astor yanked down, and Yoshi crashed into the ground hard.

Holding Murasame, Astor stepped lightly over to where Yoshi had impacted the ground. He waited for the dust to clear, only to find that Yoshi wasn't there. He heard a groaning above him, and looked up to see Yoshi plummeting toward him. He crouched, swinging his leg around and up. His foot met Yoshi's rump, redirecting the dinosaur to the side. Astor continued to spin along the ground, then jumped into the air, bringing Murasame to bear point-down. He dropped, and Murasame went straight through the crown of Yoshi's head, pinning him to the ground.

Yoshi flailed a couple of times, then was still. "Finish! Victor: Astor Hamon." Astor nodded, then straightened, pulling Murasame out of Yoshi's head, glad that none of the fighters bled. He was pretty sure that if he could bleed, he'd be bleeding everywhere. He bent down and grabbed Yoshi's hand as the Smash symbols began to appear around him. Both he and Yoshi disappeared, leaving the arena they'd fought on to rebuild itself.

* * *

Astor reappeared relatively quickly, but what was odd was that he wasn't in the manor, and neither was Yoshi still with him. He was standing on a tree looking across a gap past a yellow building. On the other side of the building was a power line on which was standing a small boy in a cap.

"Third battle, Tier E. Astor Hamon versus Ness Onett, user of PK. Ready… Go!" _What?!_ Astor snarled and jumped onto one of the awnings jutting out in front of the yellow building.

"What is this?" he asked himself, then brought Murasame to bear against Ness's baseball bat. The impact jarred Astor's arm, and he found himself weakening, unable to hold against Ness for long. _The boy is half as tall as I am!_ He jumped backward, using the awning's natural springiness as leverage to jump higher and higher, until he backflipped and landed on a lower roof on the building underneath the tree he'd first been standing on.

"PK Thunder!" Astor looked up to find a small blue-violet ball streaking toward him. He narrowed his eyes, but smacked it away with Murasame. A lick of electricity leaped up the blade. When it reached his arm, it shocked him badly enough to make him drop the sword. He hissed and looked at his arm when the tingle had faded. His flesh was bright red, and it was tender enough that even the passing breeze made it sting.

"PK Fire!" Astor ducked under a small orange lightning bolt-like projectile. It hit the wall behind him and a column of fire burst from the top, searing Astor with heat at such a close proximity. _This isn't fair_, Astor thought as he picked up Murasame and dropped to the ground. He heard a honking noise, and suddenly a car hit him. He flew against a wall and bounced off, landing on the lowest awning. He heard Ness yell, "PK Flash!" He couldn't move, so he waited and hoped that this move wasn't too bad.

He was sorely disappointed. The world flashed green, and Astor yelled out in pain as his body was filled with electricity. He could feel his body flying through the air, but he felt oddly detached. He felt no pain, just an incessant tingling, and the wind flowing along his flesh, which felt oddly stretched. When he moved his head to look, his skin looked untouched, but it still held that uncomfortable stretched feeling.

His body hit the ground after falling past the collapsed awnings, and he found himself suddenly reattached to it. He felt pain. Lots and lots of pain. On top of that infuriating tingling sensation. He groaned, and could taste blood in his mouth. He could smell his singed and burnt hair, and could barely bend his fingers, his nerves and muscles felt so numb and pain-filled.

Suddenly, everything went dark. Astor wondered if he was beginning to go blind, but no; he could see Ness in front of him, glowing with a rainbow light. He wondered what was making Ness glow like that, when Ness raised his hands to the sky and yelled, "PK Starstorm!"

Blinding light filled Astor's vision, and he waited to see whether he would survive this onslaught that he presumed to be Ness's Final Smash.

* * *

No." Raz appeared in front of his brother's body, and he looked up into the ensuing attack fearlessly. He tapped the Fire band on his arm, and willed the heat to become stronger and stronger. When it felt like his arm would explode, he said calmly, "Firestorm." He shot out a hand, and a huge fireball exploded from his palm, hitting one of the falling stars and neutralizing it.

He shot out more and more fireballs, and the stars kept being canceled out. Finally, the barrage of light stopped, and Raz looked up at the boy who'd intercepted his brother's return to the manor with Yoshi, breathing heavily. "How… dare… you," he said, panting in between each word. "My brother… was weak from his battle with Yoshi, so… you decided to try and beat him for good? To get him to disappear?"

He laughed quietly. Suddenly, his head snapped upward. Right above his head a Smash Ball had appeared. He grinned as he jumped and kicked it hard. It made an odd clinking noise, and Raz punched it. It broke, and he felt himself becoming infused with power. He wasn't exhausted from using his Firestorm – which he hadn't known he could use until he'd needed it – anymore; in fact, he felt like he could take on the world and win. This was enough for him to make this child regret that he'd decided to pick on Astor.

His hands moved in a hard-to-follow pattern, and came to his center, right hand with index and middle fingers extended, left hand with ring and pinky fingers extended, right hand pointed upward, left hand pointed to the right, knuckle of the right thumb nestled in the left pinky joint. "Aerospark," Raz whispered, eyes glowing with rainbow aura.

His clothes whipped around him, caught in an invisible wind, and electricity forked and leaped around him, crackling. He exhaled sharply, and two razor disks of wind sparking with stored electricity white in color formed out of the altered area around him. They flew away from him, crossing over each other in a pincer motion, back and forth, headed for Ness. Ness jumped, and the disks followed him. He stayed away from them for a good while, and the electricity in them crackled more and more loudly.

Raz lost patience and moved his hands in a windmill motion, before slamming his fists together. The disks promptly fused and grew exponentially in size, taking up so much space that Ness was sucked into it. Raz watched without pity as wind tore at him and electricity coursed through him repeatedly. Finally, the Aerospark dissipated, and Ness fell to the ground, motionless. "Maybe next time you'll fight fairly," Raz said, then walked over and picked him up. He walked with Ness back over to where Astor laid still unmoving, and the Announcer said, "Finish! Victor: Raz Hamon." The Smash symbols appeared, and the three of them vanished.

* * *

Raz appeared with Astor in their room, and laid him on the bed. He still felt unbelievably angry that the Onett kid had done something like that, trying to fight his brother right after he'd been pounded by Yoshi. He'd been talking with Samus when they'd gone past the lounge and heard Luigi shouting something at the screen.

The two of them had walked in and seen Astor on the screen, but he wasn't fighting a dinosaur. There was some kid chasing him with fire and lightning. When he'd seen Astor get electrocuted by that PK Flash, he'd made up his mind. Almost as though his mind was being read, the Announcer had said, "Raz Hamon, please prepare for your battle against Ness Onett." Raz had cracked his knuckles and glared at Luigi, who had been shouting encouragements for Ness, and then he'd vanished just as Ness had performed his Final Smash.

Raz made his way down to the lounge, where Samus had said she'd be waiting. He walked into the room and saw a blonde ponytail sitting on a couch. After their battle, Samus had said that her Power Suit had stopped working, so she'd taken it off and would take another preliminary, since she was still a competitor in the tournament, not having disappeared. Raz had no idea when she'd fought, but she'd said that she'd made it into Tier B, and would have to remember to fight without her Power Suit more often. She called herself Zero Suit Samus now.

He walked over and sat next to her, and she immediately turned and said, "I saw your fight. That's a scary Final Smash you've got there, that Aerospark. I wouldn't want to have to go up against it."

Raz smirked and said, "Hopefully, our battle won't go that far. Come to think of it, I didn't get to see your Final Smash."

"Well, when I'm in my Power Suit – and it works – it's a huge beam that I call the Zero Laser. It's shot from my gun arm, and after I use it, my Power Suit literally falls off. I can't use it anymore, and then I fight like this. My Final Smash out of my Power Suit rebuilds my Power Suit. Really, I'm more powerful in my suit, but a better fighter out of it. It's odd, but I think my suit's out of commission for the rest of the tournament, unfortunately."

"That is a pity," Raz said, frowning. "I'd have liked to see your Zero Laser." Samus smiled and laid her head on his shoulder. Raz was surprised, but carefully lifted his arm and placed it on the back of the couch.

Presently, Samus said, "How's Astor?"

"He's sleeping in our room now, so he should be fine," Raz replied, clenching his hands. "I'm so angry that that Ness kid tried something like that."

"It definitely wasn't fair, nor am I entirely sure it's even allowed in the tournament, unless it's a specific endurance event," Samus commented. "I think Luigi may have been in on it."

"That wouldn't surprise me," Raz said, scoffing. "I don't know what that plumber has against my brother and I, but I'm going to deeply enjoy putting him in his place. Astor and I will get to Tier D, and then to Tier C, and one of us will beat him. I swear it. I'm tired of him acting that way."

"He wasn't always like that," Samus replied. "Until the preliminaries for this tournament, actually. He used to be a pretty good guy, like his brother. He certainly was never an elitist like he is right now. I don't know where he's getting it from; he just… one day, a couple of days before you and your brother showed up, actually, he started acting haughty toward most of the other fighters, like Ganondorf, Toony, Zelda, Sheik, Falco, Wolf, Sonic, Lucas, but especially the Ice Climbers Popo and Nana for some reason. I don't know."

"I don't know either, but he's the only one who's been in these things since the beginning who's acting like that, and I intend to knock him down a few pegs," Raz said determinedly.

"I'll help," Samus said, and Raz placed his arm around her shoulders and squeezed lightly.

"Thanks," he said. "I appreciate it." Samus smiled and placed a kiss on his cheek, causing Raz to blink at her, surprised. Her skin reddened slightly, and Raz kissed her cheek. Her blush deepened, and Raz grinned. "I really do appreciate it," he said. "I'm going to get some rest before the tag team battle tomorrow against Mario and Lucas Onett." Samus had shown him the tier list he and Astor had asked Luigi about, and he'd made sure to note who they were fighting.

"Alright," Samus said. "Good luck tomorrow."

Raz nodded and headed for his room, thinking about Samus. _I didn't think anything was going to come of fighting her. It looks like I was wrong._ He couldn't say that it bothered him too much.

* * *

"Final battle, Tier E. Astor Hamon and Raz Hamon versus Mario King, hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, and Lucas Onett, user of PK. Ready… Go!"

Mario launched fireballs at the two Hamons immediately, and Lucas began shooting PK Fire at them. Since the bolts flew straight through the air, they were fairly easy to dodge. The fireballs were fairly easy to avoid as well, since they followed such an erratic trajectory. Raz tapped the Lightning band and began flinging lightning bolts at Mario and Lucas. Mario began spinning around quickly, sucking in the bolts and redirecting them, while Lucas simply absorbed them in an odd spherical field.

Raz and Astor looked at each other and nodded, before Raz tapped the golden band and Astor gripped his forearm. The clock face appeared under them, and they both began to glow with a golden light. The face faded, and they ran forward at speeds nearly impossible to follow. Raz stayed along the ground, surging up to meet them, and Astor leaped into the air, swinging Murasame fast enough to send tiny waves raining down from above.

Mario began running, and Raz found himself mildly impressed that a man of his short stature could run that quickly. Then Mario jumped and brought his fist crashing down to meet Raz, who met it with his own fist. They stayed in suspended action like that for a bit, while Lucas used his odd field and expanded it to consume all of Astor's sword strikes.

Suddenly, Raz was gone, and Mario looked around, wondering where he'd gone. He found out soon enough when countless blows rained down on him from all directions. He couldn't figure out where Raz was, so he flicked his hands and called up his shield. He watched the outside, where the shocks delivered to each shield were landing. He held his hand back and felt fire glowing in his palm. At the right time, he brought his shield down and countered Raz's punch with his charged fireball.

Raz flew backward, and Mario leaped after him, smashing him with his fist again, crying out, "Meteor Strike!" Raz shot into the ground, actually carving a small trench with his body.

Astor, meanwhile, was attempting to dodge Lucas's rope snake, which he kept trying to use to reel Astor within striking distance. Astor ducked, then shot forward, shouldering Lucas in the face. Lucas flew into the air, and then seemed to catch himself on an air pocket, flipping and gaining even more altitude. "PK Thunder!" he said, and Astor ran and launched himself toward the blonde boy, intending to hit him before the ball could hit Astor. However, Lucas directed the ball toward himself, and when it hit him, he surged forward, giving Astor countless tiny shocks on collision.

Astor fell to the ground and twitched slightly, before standing up and laughing. "That was interesting, Lucas," he said as the boy landed facing him. "I don't intend to get hit with that again, but it was interesting."

Lucas laughed and said, "We'll see if you get hit again. We'll see." Both smirked at each other, then launched forward. Astor swung Murasame, and Lucas swung… a stick. As they collided with a surprising "Thunk!", Astor laughed again. He was truly enjoying this fight. Lucas looked like he was enjoying it as well, and Astor found that he liked him much better than his brother Ness.

Suddenly, a Smash Ball appeared between them. Lucas and Astor grinned at each other, then smacked it at the same time. Both began to glow with rainbow light, and Lucas acted first. "PK Starstorm!" It began raining stars down on them again, and it was fortunate that Raz's speed enhancement hadn't worn off yet, otherwise they would have been hit hard and probably would have lost. As it was, they were running, jumping, and dodging at amazing speeds, and managed to escape the onslaught relatively unscathed. They were tired after the Hastega wore off, but that was fine. They could fight through fatigue; they'd done it before.

Another Smash Ball appeared, and this time it was Astor and Mario that broke it. Mario's every movement trailed flames, and Astor simply glowed, his hair seeming to sway in a gentle wind. Mario released his Final Smash first, and Raz and Astor barely survived the fiery maelstrom. They were badly burned, but they could still fight. Barely. Lucas and Mario began beating on them, until finally Raz crashed his fists together after tapping the Wind band. The sphere of air pushed Mario and Lucas away long enough for Astor to use his Final Smash.

The stage they were fighting on grew dark as Astor's aura glowed brighter and brighter. Mario began shooting fireballs at Astor, but Raz had tapped the Ice band and was throwing icicles at the fireballs, splitting them. Suddenly, Astor yelled, "Final Heaven!" and pointed Murasame at the sky. The tip shone in the light, and light beams emanated from it, twirling and twisting down and around Astor into the ground. Astor brought Murasame down so that it was pointing across and behind him, then sprinted forward.

All it took was one swing. One swing that hit both Mario and Lucas, and a huge column light erupted from the ground that sent their two opponents skyward.

Raz and Astor high-fived as Mario and Lucas hit the ground and did not move. "That fight went by rather quickly," Astor commented.

"Finish! Victor: Team Hamon," the Announcer boomed.

"Take it for what it is," Raz replied as another Smash Ball appeared in between them. "We're getting better, more powerful. Soon, we'll be at the top, and then we can see about getting in touch with our creator. Until then, though…" They broke the Smash Ball.

"New Final Smash acquired! Astor Hamon: Energy Rain. Raz Hamon: Dragon Fang." The voice faded, and Astor grabbed Lucas, while Raz caught hold of Mario. The four of them vanished, and thus the Hamon brothers ascended another tier.

* * *

"They have nerve, those Hamons," the figure said, watching them through the transparent floor. "How dare they try to keep these fighters from receiving the punishment for their failure. No matter, I suppose. The Worm will bring them down soon enough, stop their interfering ways. And if the Worm should fail… I will see to it the Hamon brothers will not be able to keep me from meting out the deserved punishment. And then the Hamons will suffer another version of punishment. I dare them to keep saving these failed fighters. If they fail, then they come to me, and I make them stronger so that they will not fail again. If they are allowed to fail without enduring the proper consequences, how are they to stop failing? They will not, and that is something I will not allow."

* * *

**A/N:** Okay, so I'm a bit late. My apologies. I thought that I could just churn this out, since I've been thinking about it all week. Yeah, not the case; I'm going to have to start writing these chapters earlier to meet my deadline. My apologies as well as to the extreme amount of content, and the effect that the story scenes have on the battle scenes. Even being as brief as possible, this chapter still topped out at over 8,000 words, which extends past the last chapter by 1,500 words minimum. The tiers with less fighters in them will have more detail in the battles, but the ones with more will have less, simply because I don't feel like exhausting myself. Then again, if I spaced out my writing of these chapters better, I wouldn't suffer so much. We'll have to see. Look to the future chapters for a more definitive answer to the questions I pose to myself in these rambling Author's Notes.

Anyway, so, as you can see, there's a lot going on in these chapters, which is why they're so long. I find it much easier this way to get everything out of the way, although, with the way some of the plots in the story are developing, you may see an interlude or two that has no fighting, simply because some of these things won't wait. *shrug* Far be it from me to micromanage my story.

A couple of notes:  
I got the name Tamago for Yoshi from a game called Yoshi's Egg, or _Tamago no Yoshi_. However, because I've done a lot of name-adding and whatnot, I'm trying to keep things as easily recognizable as possible, so Yoshi will go by his surname.  
The families I talk about in the chapters are the ways I group the fighters according to what games they come from, and each fighter will have his or her own last name. Again, it's an attempt to keep things easily organized, plus I've always liked the idea of families behind the scenes. Scenes with some of the families are actually coming up in future chapters, trust me.  
Since a lot of characters come from the same games but were introduced later, though they have different "surnames", some families are related to other families by, for all intents and purposes, blood or long association, such as the Gerudo and Hylia families, and, to use an example of characters that are going to show up in the next chapters, the McCloud, Lombardi, and O'Donnell families, since they all come from the StarFox series but were introduced into different games, Fox in the N64, Falco in the GCN, and Wolf in the Wii. I'll make a list and post it after the story is finished, but for now, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

With that, review, please. :D

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	5. Chapter 3: D

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Super Smash Brothers, or any of the characters included in the franchise. That all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc., neither of which I work for. I'm simply a poor college student on break who had a nugget of an idea and decided to see what came of it. Additionally, I own nothing I took from other video games. None of it's mine, I just took it and threw it all together, I promise.

**Warning:** Again, mild gore, no actual bleeding.

**Chapter 3: D**

"You will not fail again."

"I will not fail again."

"If you do fail, you will suffer the consequences."

"If I fail, I will suffer the consequences."

"You will stop the Hamon brothers."

"I will stop the Hamon brothers."

* * *

"Raz, we should talk," Astor said after they'd left the Target Room, having broken all of the targets and thus being forcibly removed until the room could replace the targets.

"What should we talk about?" Raz asked, raising an eyebrow. He'd expected Astor to want to talk to him about something sooner or later, though he had no idea what. Astor had been looking at him oddly since the fight against Ness that Raz had interceded in on Astor's behalf, though in light of the impending final tier match, he hadn't said anything. But now that they were finished…

"Actually, there are a couple of things I want to talk to you about," Astor replied, and Raz's other eyebrow rose.

"Okay… Whenever you're ready," Raz said as they walked through the door to their room and Raz shut it behind them.

"Well, first, I wanted to thank you for saving me from disappearing," Astor replied.

"Astor, you're my brother, of course I wasn't going to let you disappear. Ignoring the fact that, had you fought Ness first instead of Yoshi, that midget wouldn't have stood a chance, that is," Raz muttered.

"Probably not," Astor agreed. "But anyway, I wanted to thank you. So thank you."

Raz sighed, but nodded. "You're welcome, Astor. What else?"

"Well, I wanted to ask you about Samus."

"What about Samus?" Raz asked warily, and Astor smiled.

"I think that answered my question easily enough. You have an interest in her, don't you?"

Raz considered lying, but then thought, _Astor will probably see right through it. _So he said, "Yes… I guess. I don't dislike her, and she doesn't seem to dislike me. I just know that I'm going to be at a major disadvantage if I have to fight her again."

"Why is that?" Astor asked, amused, as though he already knew the answer.

"I'm afraid to hurt her now," Raz replied, and Astor nodded.

"I feel the same way about Zelda, that's why I asked you about Samus," he replied, and Raz smirked.

"I knew you two would end up together. It's so adorable!" Raz said, making a show of appearing to be completely infatuated with the idea. Astor rolled his eyes and scowled, but he felt no real anger; after all, he could always tease Raz about Samus… or DK.

* * *

"First battle, Tier D. Astor Hamon versus Ike Gawain, Hero of Tellius and wielder of Ragnell. Ready… Go!" Astor brought Murasame in front of him in a reverse grip as Ike ran forward, slow but inexorable, like a juggernaut. Ragnell was a big sword, and Astor had the nasty feeling that, even if they couldn't bleed, the blade would raise quite a bruise.

But then Ike was in front of him, swinging Ragnell in a wide arc. Astor jumped and sighed as the dark golden blade swiped the air under his feet. Suddenly, Ike had thrown Ragnell into the air. The sword on its own (or so it seemed) broke through Astor's defensive hold, and as the blade flipped, Astor was hard-pressed to block the consecutive strikes.

Then Ike had jumped into the air, and had grabbed Ragnell's handle, and dragged Astor back to the ground. _This is just like Ganondorf_, Astor thought, slightly amused, mostly irritated. He landed hard on both knees and jumped backward as Ike took another swing. He slid backward on the balls of his feet before coming slowly to a stop. He sprinted forward, swinging Murasame in a series of diagonal strokes.

Ike was slow moving, but Ragnell had such a large blade that he was able to block most of Astor's strikes with various parts of the blade. "You fight well," Ike commented, and Astor raised an eyebrow.

"You aren't bad yourself," he replied, and Ike grinned.

"I was taught by one of the best swordsmen in my homeland, so I should be at least an acceptable swordsman. Who trained you?"

"I trained myself," Astor replied, since that was mostly true. To be honest, he didn't know where he'd learned to fight, he just… could. He practiced often, but he didn't know how he'd learned to fight.

"That's impressive," Ike said as he plunged Ragnell into the ground. Astor dove to the side as flames sprouted from the ground in a line.

Suddenly, the ground that was actually a castle roof seemed to shake before it crumbled. Ike and Astor fought the entire way down, landing on a platform that seemed to be in a throne room. Astor managed to block a strike only to find Ike's steel-toed boot impacting his stomach. Still slightly sore there from the fight with Yoshi, Astor groaned as he fell to one knee.

Ike stood over him, preparing to strike a hard blow. Astor raised his head and his shield just in time to block the hit, and Ike sighed. "You got lucky, Astor," he said. "Bring down your shield; I don't want to break it."

Astor took a moment to catch his breath, then nodded and released the shield, taking a swing to counter Ike's renewed assault. Astor caught Ike's other arm moving, and found himself catching Ike's fist directly in front of his face. "You don't fight with just your sword," Astor commented.

"Neither do you," Ike replied and jerked his fist away. The background darkened, and they both looked up; a Smash Ball had appeared. Astor jumped for it, and Ike threw Ragnell. The blade got there first, and Ike immediately followed it. Astor growled and punched Ike hard. Ike didn't manage to catch Astor's fist, and Astor heard a crunch as he broke Ike's nose and sent him back to the ground.

Astor swung Murasame, and the Smash Ball broke. Astor grinned as he landed on the ground, glowing with the rainbow aura. "Let's see how well your great swordsman taught you," he said, and Ike nodded, bringing Ragnell to a defensive stance.

Astor's eyes glowed with rainbow light before the aura began to concentrate around Murasame's blade. Astor crouched, then leaped high into the air, beginning to spin rapidly. "Energy Rain!" came the yell, and the aura completely vanished inside the blade before a flash lit the sky. Short bursts of light began shooting out of Murasame, swirling around as Astor flipped so that he was stretched out and pointed toward Ike. Murasame came down in front of Astor, who braced himself before a huge burst shot from the blade, piercing the swirling array of shorter bursts. They all converged on Ike, who had simply brought Ragnell to bear, his own eyes glinting.

Ragnell flashed, and the central beam disintegrated. Ike backflipped with a grin. His grin didn't last long, however, as Astor had jumped and was now shooting past Ike, slashing him through the midriff. He came around again and again, slicing Ike in all directions. He shot toward the ground and launched himself upward; his knee impacted Ike's back hard enough to send him higher. Astor landed again and jumped even higher, backflipping and catching Ike as he completed the backflip kick.

Ike impacted the ground hard enough to leave a web of cracks underneath him. As though his landing had been some sort of trigger, the floor broke entirely, and they both fell through to land underneath the castle entirely.

As they landed, Ike still on his back, the Announcer said, "Finish! Victor: Astor Hamon." Astor smirked as he placed a hand on Ike's chest and they both vanished.

* * *

Raz and Astor walked into the lounge to find Samus, Mario, Zelda, Sheik, DK, Toony, and Luigi all standing there. Mario and Luigi seemed to be arguing heatedly over something. Raz and Astor looked at each other and shrugged before walking over to see what the conflict was about.

When they got to the side Mario and the others were standing on, opposite Luigi, they noticed that they seemed to be in a protective semi-circle around someone neither Hamon could see. "What's going on?" Astor whispered, moving to stand next to Zelda.

"That you, Hamon?" Luigi called, having heard Astor's whispered question. "Both of you? Good. Tell these people how you cheated your way through the ranks."

"What are you talking about, King?" Raz said scornfully, standing next to Samus. "We haven't cheated at all."

"What about in the fight against Ness?" Luigi demanded, and Raz snarled.

Astor sent him a quelling look, then said coolly, "I'd say that the cheating was on the part of Ness, since to my knowledge, all fighters are supposed to return to the manor after a fight. I was taken advantage of in a weakened state by a boy who couldn't be bothered to wait until I could put up a fight to try and get rid of me."

"You deserve to be got rid of!" Luigi shouted.

"Who are you to decide that, Luigi?" Mario replied before Astor could say anything. "Last I checked, you aren't the coordinator of the tournament. You have no authority here, Luigi. Why are you acting like this?"

"I have plenty of authority!" Luigi roared. "I've been here just as long as you have, and I deserve some respect!"

"Who's been disrespecting you?" Zelda asked incredulously. "And how?"

"Those stupid Hamons are the ones who've been disrespecting me, by coming from nowhere and completely wrecking everything," Luigi replied, waving his arms above his head. "Why can't any of you see that they're only here to get rid of all of us? Already, four of our fellow Smashers have disappeared –"

"You're just as likely a suspect in that as we are," Raz spat, and Luigi hissed.

"How _dare_ you try to impugn my good image?" Luigi said through gritted teeth.

"You are an idiot," Sheik said, and Luigi rounded on him. "Shut up," Sheik said before Luigi could say anything. "You're an experienced fighter, but you're an idiot. Being here since the first tournament gives you no right to attack other fighters outside of an arena. You're tarnishing your own image by acting the way you are."

"They were asking for it," Luigi said in a low voice. "They cheat as well! Both of them fighting at the same time…"

It was at this time that Astor decided to see who were being protected by the other Smashers and leaned forward, looking down. He saw two small children in thick coats, one blue and one pink. The one in the pink coat was crying softly, and the one in the blue was comforting her as best as he could. "What did you do to them?" Astor asked Luigi.

"Gave them the punishment they deserved for cheating," Luigi said dismissively.

"We weren't cheating!" the one in the blue coat said.

"Yes, Popo, you and Nana are cheating by entering as two fighters who fight together all the time," Luigi said in a condescending tone.

"If they weren't cleared with the head of the tournament, then they wouldn't be here fighting now, and they wouldn't have been in the last tournament," Samus said. "You know that they're cleared, but you assaulted them anyway. Why?"

"Because them fighting together is not right," Luigi responded with a shrug.

"Who are you to decide that?" Mario asked again, and Luigi frowned at him.

"Mario, you should be on my side in this," he said. "We're brothers, remember?"

"Even though we are brothers, I'm not going to support you in your hateful ways," Mario replied. "You should know better than to act like this, and I don't know what your issue is, but you won't get any help from me until you get yourself together."

"I am perfectly composed," Luigi said, gritting his teeth again. "Your judgment is simply clouded by the arrival of these Hamon brothers."

"You act like we're the catalysts of the apocalypse or something," Astor said. "We aren't actually that bad, you know."

"You are that bad," Luigi replied. "There's no use lying; you've dragged everyone into believing that you're just some innocent fighters who are here for the tournament, but I know better. You made Ganondorf, Link, Purin, and Falcon disappear on purpose, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise."

"What makes you so sure we did it?" Raz asked, tilting his head to one side.

"You were the ones to defeat them when they disappeared, so you're responsible," Luigi said as though it should be obvious.

"You seem to be overlooking the fact that we're completely new here, and have no good reason to make _anyone_ disappear. Not to mention that, since we figured out that some of the Smashers have disappeared, we've kept any more from doing so," Astor replied in the same tone Luigi had taken. "I never would have pegged such an experienced fighter and clever man to fall into such a blatant fallacy of logic."

"Don't you insult my intelligence," Luigi said, shaking a finger at Astor.

"No, Luigi, don't you act like you're the boss of everyone and everything," Mario shot back, making Luigi blink at him; Mario sounded truly angry now. "You have no right to act like that. I, Falcon, Purin, Yoshi, Kirby, Link, Samus, DK, Fox, Chu, and Ness have all been here just as long as you have, and you don't see us acting like we run the place. You don't see us verbally and almost physically attacking children for no good reason. And you certainly don't see us spurring away Raz and Astor just because they're new."

Luigi started to say something, but Mario kept on talking. "We were new to the first tournament, and if you keep this up, I will make sure you don't come back for the fifth tournament. I'm tired of you acting like this, Luigi, and I'm not going to have you tarnish the King name by acting like an idiot. Get over yourself, or I'll get you out of the tournament. Permanently."

Luigi narrowed his eyes, and then spun on his heel and stormed off, hands covered in green flames. As he got to the entrance to the lounge, he spun and yelled, "Don't you threaten me, Mario! You'll be sorry for humiliating me like this!" Then he was gone.

There was silence for a few minutes, then Mario, whose own hands had been smoking, said, "I'm really, truly sorry for how Luigi's acting, especially to you two, Popo and Nana. You don't deserve to be treated like that."

"You don't have to apologize, Mario," Popo said, helping Nana to stand. "You aren't the one being such a jerk." Raz laughed and raised a fist, and Popo bumped the fist with his own, smiling brightly. "Thank you for standing up for us, by the way," Popo said, and Raz shrugged. "Come on, Nana, we should go to sleep." Nana, still sniffling slightly, waved to the others as Popo led her out. The other Smashers chorused farewells, and after the Ice Climbers left, silence reigned once more.

"He certainly seems to mother Nana," Astor commented, and Mario grinned ruefully.

"They've always been like that," Zelda replied. "Popo's always been more outspoken, and he's the stronger of the two. Nana is shy, quiet, and easily upset, which is why Popo acts the way he does. It's good that he can act that mature, since without him, Nana probably wouldn't know what to do."

Raz frowned before asking, "What did Luigi do to those kids that made Nana cry?"

Mario sighed before saying, "When I came into the lounge because I heard yelling, Luigi was shouting something at them about being 'unfit to leave the mountaintop where a vulture could eat them' because 'they would never serve as anything more than vulture food'."

Raz narrowed his eyes, and Astor laid a hand on his shoulder as Samus linked her arm with his. "Luigi's definitely becoming a problem," Samus said. "We may have to talk with the head of the tournament. He's beginning to affect the Smashers outside of the fights, and is trying to tilt the tournament unfairly against the two of you."

"But why?" Raz asked, exasperated.

"I don't know," Mario said. "But I was serious when I said I wasn't going to tolerate it much longer."

* * *

"Raz Hamon, your battle against the Pokémon Trainer will soon commence. Please move to the center of the room."

Raz was already standing where the Announcer had told him to stand, and he disappeared without much fanfare.

He landed on springy turf facing a red and white ball like the one Purin had come out of. He tilted his head as the Announcer said, "Second battle, Tier D. Raz Hamon versus the Pokémon Trainer, fighting with Ivysaur, Charizard, and Squirtle. Ready… Go!"

The ball opened and a small blue turtle appeared. Raz started as he noticed that the turtle was already glowing with rainbow light. "What in the world?!"

"Ready! Go, Triple Finish!" PT cried, and two more red and white balls appeared, releasing a huge orange dragon and a blue-green creature with a rosebud on its back. Raz didn't have much more time to observe them, since they all began glowing. Suddenly, a column of flames burst from Charizard's mouth, a golden yellow beam shot from the bud on Ivysaur's back, and a thick jet of water exploded from Squirtle's mouth.

Raz crouched before jumping as high as he could, and flipped himself upside down. He could feel his hair ruffle as the three attacks shot by underneath, missing him by inches. _How did they start the battle with a Final Smash?! _Raz wondered as he landed, the huge attack behind him. The other Pokémon had disappeared, leaving just Squirtle behind once more.

The weird thing was that Squirtle appeared to be exhausted after participating in that huge attack. "Squirtle, come back!" PT yelled, and Squirtle vanished to be replaced by Charizard. "Go, Charizard! Rock Smash!" Charizard grunted before picking up a huge chunk of the ground slowly, then headbutting it. Raz tapped the turquoise and brown bands. Winds began to swirl around his fist as it felt like it was turning to rock. He grabbed his forearm with his other hand, then forcefully thrust his fist forward. The rock jarred his arm hard, but eventually split, cut by razor winds and smashed against a harder rock.

Before it split, the huge rock pushed against his arm hard, and it felt like Charizard had hit it from the other side. Raz felt his arm crack and yelled in pain, but then the rock split and he looked in the face of Charizard, whose eyes were crossed slightly. Raz's eyes narrowed and, letting his arm hang limp, jumped into the air, kicking Charizard in the back of the head. Charizard's pupils vanished for a second as its eyes rolled back into its head, then its eyes closed as it fell forward.

"Finish! Victor: Raz Hamon." Raz sighed and slumped to the ground. He barely had the presence of mind to grab Charizard's tail as they both vanished, hoping that saving Charizard would save Squirtle, Ivysaur, and the Pokémon Trainer.

* * *

"Raz, are you alright?" Astor asked as he practically burst his door down to get to his brother. He'd watched Raz scream, though he hadn't heard the crack in his brother's arm. Zelda had managed to get him to leave Raz alone for a while, but eventually she had no good excuse to get him to stay away from his brother until Raz woke up. He found Raz lying on his bed, sleeping.

At Astor's yelled question, though, he snorted and woke up, looking around groggily. "What's the matter?" he said sleepily.

Astor sighed in relief, then said, "Nothing. I just wanted to see how you were doing. That looked like a rough fight against PT, though it also seemed really short."

"It did go by really quickly," Raz mused. "And my arm feels better, though it's still a little sore."

"What happened to your arm?"

"It broke," Raz said nonchalantly, and Astor blinked at his casual tone. Then, he regained his composure and nodded.

"That makes sense that it's still sore," he said. "It turns out that I, according to Mario and Peach, who have some basic medical knowledge, that I got a deep muscle bruise in my abdomen from Yoshi's headbutt. And the soreness only just faded completely." Raz frowned, but shrugged.

"It's manageable and ignorable," he said, getting up. "How're Popo and Nana?"

"I saw them heading toward the Target Room. Popo had Nana laughing about something or other, so it looks like they're both doing well."

Raz nodded, and then got a sour expression as he said, "Anything else from Luigi?"

Astor shook his head. "No, no one has seen him since Mario blew up at him. But the other Smashers can hear noises coming from the Kings' room, so it's safe to say he hasn't gone and left somewhere."

"Pity that," Raz said, and Astor snorted in amusement.

"Too true. But as long as we know where he is, we know he's not making any trouble."

"Speaking of trouble…" Raz started, then trailed off. "Do you think… Luigi has something to do with the disappearances?"

Astor blinked; he'd thought about it, of course, but mostly with contempt. He'd never seriously thought about it. "Actually… I don't know," he said, cocking his head to one side. "I think he's got some serious issues and probably should get help, but I don't think he'd kill Link, Ganondorf, Falcon, and Purin. At least… I hope he hasn't. That would be…" He couldn't finish the sentence, but Raz nodded like he had.

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see," he replied. "We'll get the information we're looking for after our fight with Luigi, if not before then somehow."

* * *

"Final battle, Tier D. Astor Hamon and Raz Hamon versus Zelda Hylia, princess of Hyrule and user of the arcane arts and Bowser King, Dragon Koopa and leader of the Koopa clan of the Mushroom Kingdom. Ready… Go!"

"Good luck, you two," Zelda said. "I won't hold anything back."

"Neither will we," Raz said, and Zelda smiled.

"Good." She drew her hands back, and a floating red orb shot toward them. Astor and Raz dove to a side as Zelda mimed throwing something, and the orb exploded. Then they had to roll out of the way as Bowser crashed rump-first to the ground. Raz immediately sprung up and kicked Bowser in the side of the head, knocking the huge draconic creature only slightly to the side.

_He's like a wall_, Raz thought as Bowser made a swipe at him with his claws extended. They slashed across Raz's torso, and he hissed in shock and pain. Then he was knocked backward by a punch to the face.

Meanwhile, Astor was chasing Zelda, who he could've sworn was giggling as she twirled and vanished again and again. "You have to find me to catch me," she said, and Astor raised an eyebrow.

"Fine with me," he said, leaping into the air. Murasame flashed in the light, and then he was slicing the air, sending small waves of air in all directions. "I'll hit you sooner or later," he said, his voice wavering slightly as he moved. Zelda simply laughed and appeared directly in front of him. Her hands sparkled as she spun in the air, jarring Astor's equilibrium with a number of small shocks.

She spun once in the air, and her foot shot out, connecting with Astor's chest and hitting him with a much bigger shock that coursed through his body as he fell to the ground. He found himself being grabbed by Bowser, who threw him on the ground and was about to flop on top of him when Raz kicked him from the side, hitting him with air compressed into a cone. Bowser let out a whooshing sound and flew to the side, nearly hitting Zelda, who spun and vanished, reappearing just after Bowser had flown past where she had been standing.

"The more she uses her magic, the harder it'll be to take her down," Raz muttered to Astor, helping him up.

"I know," Astor said. "But there's nothing we can do, is there? She's going to use magic to help her fight, so to stop her from using it, we'd have to take it away."

"Or make it so that she can't," Raz said with a grin, pointing to the yellow band on his arm. "The joy of pitting the martial arts versus the arcane arts is that the martial arts are better suited for melee combat, while the arcane arts split its effectiveness between melee and ranged combat. If you notice, Zelda is much less direct with her attacks, and when she does attack directly, she imbues her attacks with magic to make them stronger. I'll handle her. You take on Bowser."

Astor nodded and raised Murasame to point at Bowser, who was making his way back toward them. Zelda had been charging another weird orange orb, and it was headed for their feet. Raz and Astor raised an eyebrow, and Astor jumped as Raz tapped the Fire band on his arm before making a sweeping round kick that impacted the orb just as it exploded. He smiled sweetly at Zelda, who gave him a smile just as sweet before twirling and vanishing.

Raz's hand shot out and caught her ankle just as she reappeared and was about to kick him. He shook his head slowly once, twice, and then spun and threw her to the ground. She spun and a blue diamond appeared around her. Raz could see her, the image shimmering slightly through the blue diamond around her. When it vanished, Raz flung lightning at her. She grabbed her forearm and pushed her arm forward with a grunt, and her magic hit his lightning head-on, canceling both the magic and the lightning out.

Raz growled and ran forward, throwing his fist out. Zelda caught his fist in both of her hands. Her eyes flashed, and Raz was jolted by a series of shocks that made him fall to the ground. Zelda stood above him, her eyes glowing now as her hand came up by her head, the tips of her index and middle fingers sparking. He flipped himself backward and pushed away with his hands as Zelda released a large discharge of magical energy right where Raz had been lying.

"You're not bad," Raz said as he watched her.

"Looks like the arcane arts can be used just as well in melee situations," she replied with another smile. Raz grinned.

"Too bad it isn't suited especially for melee combat," he said, dashing forward, tapping the Lightning band. Zelda twirled and nearly vanished, but Raz's hand shot forward, hitting her in her sternum before she could. He hit her in the stomach, chest, shoulder, solar plexus, and throat with electrically charged palms before spinning and elbowing her hard enough to make her double over. He spun again and her face met his knee. Her head snapped back, and she fell supine to the ground. Her mouth was working, and she was breathing, but she was effectively paralyzed. Raz grinned and helped her to sit up before winking at her and running off to help Astor fight Bowser.

Meanwhile, Astor had been aggravating the Koopa more and more by smacking him lightly with the flat of his blade. He could move faster and much more easily than the cumbersome Bowser, a fact that Astor was manipulating so much it was almost obscene how he danced around the dragon. Suddenly, Bowser disappeared inside his shell and spun along the ground, the spikes digging into Astor, who had been about to drop on Bowser from overhead.

Astor flew up into the air and Bowser headbutted him hard, sending him even higher. Bowser headbutted him again, and Astor flew across the stage, skidding to a stop. He didn't move. "Looks like it's you and me," Bowser said with a dark laugh.

Raz simply grinned and said, "Looks like it." Bowser puttered toward him, and Raz waited for him to get close before crouching and sending a hard uppercut into Bowser's jaw. Bowser actually left the ground for a little while, long enough for Raz to pivot on his foot and send a roundhouse kick to Bowser's side. Bowser grunted as he hit the ground, and Raz continued to pivot, swinging his leg around and up. He tapped the brown band quickly and felt his foot harden before he crashed it into Bowser's shell. Bowser let out a roarlike grunt as Raz's heel struck hard enough to almost crack one of the spikes on Bowser's shell.

"Too bad I hit much harder than Astor does," Raz finished before looking up into the air. A Smash Ball had appeared. He grinned and jumped, planning to find out what his new Final Smash would look like. He kicked it hard, and it broke.

Raz landed lightly a short way away from Bowser, glowing. He grinned and clenched both of his fists together. He brought his hands up, the brown, silver, orange, and turquoise bands glowing on his arm. He then crashed them into the ground, yelling, "Dragon Fang!" The fissure caused a huge earthen dragon to erupt from the ground with pure white fangs. The dragon curled high above Raz before bending back down, staring Bowser in the face.

Its cavernous jaw opened and a small spark appeared in the back of the cave. Its head drew back, pointing toward the sky. Suddenly, a tunnel of wind burst from its mouth, and a column of fire that appeared to be in the shape of a slightly bent cone, or a giant fang. The wind collapsed so that the point of wind and the point of fire met. The dragon's head crashed down, and the point met the point of the spike directly in the center of Bowser's shell. The fang then rose up and began slicing in huge arcs across his shell.

Raz jerked his head upward, and the fang scooped under Bowser, flipping him over at the same time the earth dragon's mouth opened even wider, making its fangs appear to be in a perfect circle. The huge fang reared up, and then crashed back down at the same time the smaller ice fangs shot from the dragon's mouth. They all converged on the dragon's soft undershell, creating a huge gust of wind, ice, and heated rock. When it all faded, Bowser laid there, unmoving.

"Finish! Victor: Team Hamon." Raz grinned and turned to his brother, who was levitated from the ground into a standing position.

"Nice, Raz," Astor said as he was revived and moved toward Raz and another Smash Ball.

"I know that," Raz replied as they both broke the ball.

"New Final Smash acquired! Astor Hamon: Great Gospel. Raz Hamon: Livewire."

"Those sound interesting," Raz commented as he laid a hand on Bowser and Astor picked up Zelda.

"They do indeed. I can't wait to see them," Astor replied, and the brothers shared an identical grin as the four of them vanished.

* * *

"You have failed for the last time."

"I have failed for the last time."

"You are coming to me now, to be punished for your failure."

"I am going to you now, to be punished for my failure."

"You deserve this punishment."

"I deserve this punishment."

* * *

**A/N:** Bwahahaha. I do so enjoy being vague on purpose. Anyway, before anyone says anything if they've managed to figure out where I'm getting the names for most of these Final Smashes for the Hamon brothers, I only took the name because I liked the way it sounded; I already had the idea for the Final Smash. So Raz's Dragon Fang is not the actual Dragon Fang, but I like my Final Smash, so it stays. XD

Also, I swear I had no plans for pairing my OCs. This just sort of... jumped at me. Blame Astor and Raz. *shrug*

Reviews are always much appreciated. :)

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	6. Chapter 4: C

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Super Smash Brothers, or any of the characters included in the franchise. That all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc., neither of which I work for. I'm simply a poor college student on break who had a nugget of an idea and decided to see what came of it. Additionally, I own nothing I took from other video games. None of it's mine, I just took it and threw it all together, I promise.

**Chapter 4: C**

The sun rose and shed its brilliant light on Smash Manor, and it was almost easy to forget for a second that another Smasher had vanished.

Astor and Raz looked at each other as most of the other Smashers all stood around, discussing where they thought the missing Smasher could have gone.

"It's obvious that he didn't want to fight in the company of cheaters like the Hamons," Luigi said knowledgeably, but most everyone ignored him and did not respond.

"Gosh, Luigi, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you're a bit jealous you didn't think of disappearing first," Raz said, masking the venom in his voice with an overbearingly pleasant tone. Samus noticed that he and Astor had arrived and made her way over, nudging Zelda as she did so. Zelda looked over her shoulder – she had been discussing things with a brown fox and a blue bird – and then excused herself to follow Samus.

"Don't be ridiculous, Hamon," Luigi scoffed. "I won't be scared away from the tournament by the likes of you. I'm not a baby like Lucario."

"The same baby who not only beat you, but managed to ascend to the top of Tier B?" Zelda said smugly, and Luigi scowled at her, but did not show any other sign that he had acknowledged her presence.

"Anyway," Luigi said, "I'm sure you know that I'll be conducting an investigation to prove that you two are responsible for Lucario's disappearance."

"But we've never met Lucario," Astor pointed out, and Luigi rolled his eyes.

"You don't have to meet someone to be responsible for their disappearance."

"You really are an idiot," Samus said, peering at him as though truly seeing him for the first time. "How on earth can Lucario be scared of two people he's never met before?"

"Word of mouth, Samus. Word of mouth," Luigi replied darkly.

Before any of them could call him out for what practically was a confession, a bright light flashed in the center of the grand entrance hall. The five of them ran out to see what had happened, and Astor and Raz met Lucario.

Lucario was black-furred, though he had blue and red streaks of fur, and his claws were yellowed. He glared at them, baring his fangs, which were as yellow as his claws. Then, without a word, he spun and pushed some sort of weird blue and purple light out of his hands, shooting off up the stairs and out of sight.

After a few moments, Raz said, "Well, it looks like Lucario's back."

* * *

"First battle, Tier C. Astor Hamon versus Sheik Hylia, quick-change artist and descended from the Sheikah. Ready… Go!"

"Good luck," Astor said, and Sheik nodded in response before gathering his hand into a fist behind him. He moved his hand like he was counting his fingers, though his fingers didn't move. Astor narrowed his eyes and brought Murasame to bear, waiting.

Suddenly, Sheik dashed forward, tossing whatever was in his hand. Astor saw a glint of light as whatever he'd thrown traveled through the air, and then suddenly had to hold Murasame tighter as a barrage of small projectiles collided with the blade. He barely had time to register that they were needles before Sheik was inside his defenses, punching up. He caught Astor's jaw, and his head snapped back as Sheik then shouldered him in the sternum. It was a hard hit, and Astor exhaled sharply as he was sent backward.

He flipped when he could get his breath, and ended up using his forearm to catch Sheik's hand as he whipped his arm to hit Astor with some sort of slapping chop. Astor rotated his wrist, then swung his arm and smacked Sheik with the flat of his blade. It knocked Sheik's momentum enough that Astor could press an offensive, and he immediately began swinging Murasame in a series of fluid movements that caught Sheik in various places.

Finally, he punched Sheik in the face, and Sheik hit the ground before flipping himself back up. "You fight well," Sheik commented, and Astor bowed slightly, keeping his eyes on Sheik.

"You fight well yourself," Astor replied, but Sheik made no response other than to gather more needles. Astor narrowed his eyes and sprinted toward Sheik, holding Murasame behind him to decrease wind resistance so that he could run faster. Sheik threw the needles, but Astor simply moved to the side and kept running as the needles whizzed past.

Right as Astor was about to strike, Sheik swung his arm up and then swung it back down, vanishing in a surprisingly strong explosion. Astor realized its power because he hit it head-on. He felt mildly burned as he flew backward again and Sheik reappeared, but it was nothing too debilitating.

"That's an interesting move," Astor said. Sheik made no reply other than a noncommittal noise and then ran toward Astor. Astor took a lower stance, one that would allow him to defend better. Sheik came within striking distance, and Astor jabbed with Murasame. Sheik in an interesting maneuver chose to counter this with one arm, making no noise of discomfort as the edge of the blade cut along his forearm. His other arm shot out, and an odd gray chain shot out of his sleeve, catching Astor with the tip. It shocked him badly enough to make him temporarily paralyzed, a fact Sheik had no qualms taking advantage of.

He began jabbing at Astor in various spots with the tips of his fingers. His jabs, though light, really did smart, and Astor was quickly losing patience. Finally, he felt some modicum of muscle control return to him and caught Sheik's wrist. Sheik immediately brought one leg up, which Astor blocked with his own knee. Sheik's other hand came up for a punch, which Astor blocked with his bicep. "Looks like this won't be a battle of who can attack more," Sheik said, before breaking Astor's hold and performing a backhand spring to get out of striking range.

"Not as much as it'll be a battle of who can attack harder," Astor finished the sentence and Sheik nodded before leaning back on one leg and beckoning with his outstretched hand. Astor rolled his eyes before shifting his weight forward. When he felt as though he would fall on his face, he shot off on one foot toward Sheik, who suddenly dropped to the ground, swinging his legs in a complete circle, making it look as though he were attempting to dance. His delayed kick caught Astor's leg as it came down, causing Astor to lose his precarious balance. He wavered a bit, which was enough of an opening for Sheik to send one strong kick into Astor's abdomen, followed immediately by a pivot and another hard kick.

Astor doubled over only to find his face connected with Sheik's knee. He straightened up before falling backward, landing hard on his back. Above him, Sheik looked down at him with mild disinterest on his face. "I'll be sure to finish you off soon," Sheik said, looking upward sharply as a Smash Ball appeared. He jumped, but Astor got up and grabbed his ankle before swinging him around and throwing him up into the air. Astor jumped and brought his elbow crashing down into Sheik's stomach, making the fighter grunt as he crashed down into the ground.

Astor looked up at the Smash Ball and slashed at it hard. It flew off, and Astor chased it, determined to break it before Sheik could. Suddenly, Sheik appeared in front of him in a wisp of smoke and jumped, kicking it and breaking it. Astor swore and ran as Sheik landed. He looked at Astor and Astor could've sworn Sheik was smiling slightly as he pulled out a huge bow and drew back the string. Light shone from the bow as Sheik released the string, and a huge arrow that seemed to be made entirely of light streaked toward Astor.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to dodge it, Astor dug Murasame into the ground and held on as tightly as he could. The Light Arrow passed straight through him, and Astor could hear an odd shrieking sound as it did so. The pain is immediate and huge, and Astor blacked out slightly as he fought to remain standing. Eventually, his sight returned, and Sheik was standing in front of him with his arms crossed. "You're a stubborn fighter," Sheik observed, and Astor gave him a tight grin.

"Can't help it," Astor replied as he slowly stood, pulling Murasame out of the ground, and then suddenly pivoting and slashing Sheik across the midsection. Sheik hissed in surprise, and Astor's foot shot out next, kicking Sheik in the side. He continued his pivot, and on the third spin, his fist shot out and caught Sheik square in the face, sending the fighter flying backward with a choked sound.

Astor immediately shot off after him, ignoring the pain coursing through his body. He'd be blasted if he let Sheik win when Astor could still fight. Astor got a sudden inspiration, and threw Murasame. The blade went straight through Sheik's torso, and the fighter grunted as it pinned him against a wall. Astor walked up to him and smirked before pulling out Murasame slowly. As Sheik sank to the ground, Astor spun and slashed down hard. The blade passed through Sheik again, but the fighter's pained grunt let Astor know that the hit had connected extremely well.

Astor punched Sheik in the face one more time, and Sheik suddenly slumped against the wall, breathing but not moving.

Astor sighed as he stood there, panting heavily. "Finish! Victor: Astor Hamon." _This was a surprisingly hard fight_, he mused as he placed a hand on Sheik's chest and they both vanished.

* * *

"Sheik put up quite the fight," Raz commented as he, Samus, Zelda, and Toony watched Astor and Sheik disappear.

"He's a good fighter," Zelda agreed, and Toony nodded. "It looks like Astor was better, though."

"I wouldn't say better," Raz replied. "More like… more stubborn. And Astor hits harder. Sheik definitely gave him a fight, though." He actually wanted to check on his brother, but he knew that the Manor would probably take care of healing Astor. That Light Arrow had looked quite painful to endure.

"I'm especially surprised that he stood through that Light Arrow attack," Samus commented, seeming to read Raz's mind. "I've been on the receiving end of that myself from Zelda here, and it hurts. A lot."

Raz grinned, but made no response other than to relax against the couch they were all sitting on. Samus leaned against him, and Raz, though still kind of shocked by her close proximity, looped an arm lightly around her shoulders. Zelda and Toony looked at them, and then smiled at each other.

They were silent for a while, and then Zelda said, "You know, I really worry for the two of you sometimes. You and your brother, that is. I really don't like how Luigi's acting, and I'm kind of worried about Lucario, as well. He didn't look so… feral before he disappeared. He seemed more refined, more sophisticated. I don't know what happened to him, but I don't think it can mean anything good for the two of you, especially given at how he reacted to you upon seeing you."

Raz frowned, but said, "I'm not too worried. Astor and I can handle him."

"Of that, I have no doubt," Zelda replied, nodding her head. "I'm just worried… What if Luigi vanishes and comes back looking like that? It would mean that even our efforts to stop the disappearances aren't enough. What would we do?"

"I'd prefer not to think about it until it happens," Raz said. "We'll figure something out if it comes to that, when it comes to that. But until then, Astor and I are going to focus on ascending through the tiers."

Zelda nodded, and silence descended over the group once again, broken only when a voice said, "Hello." Raz recognized the voice as that of his brother, and if that weren't enough, the smile that appeared on Zelda's face would've been enough of a sign of Astor's presence.

"Hey, brother," Raz said as Astor came to sit down. Zelda scooted over, making Toony end up sitting on the arm of the couch, leaning against its winged back. Astor sat down and Zelda laid her head on his shoulder much like Samus did with Raz, and Astor absently trailed his fingers through Zelda's hair. Eventually, Raz said, "That was quite the battle between you and Sheik."

Before Astor could respond, the Announcer's voice sounded. "Raz Hamon, your battle with Sonic Hedgeton will soon commence. Please move to the center of the room." Sighing, Raz shoved lightly at Samus, who sat up straight to allow Raz to stand.

As Raz moved to the center of the room, Samus said, "Good luck." Raz nodded to her.

"Fight well, brother," Astor said, and Raz nodded to him as well before he vanished.

* * *

"Second battle, Tier C. Raz Hamon versus Sonic Hedgeton, fastest runner in the world and user of the Chaos Emeralds. Ready… Go!"

Raz barely had time to blink before Sonic was up in his face, punching him. Raz's head snapped back, and Sonic's foot spun around and around, kicking Raz repeatedly. Raz growled before blocking Sonic's foot with his forearm, then punching the blue hedgehog in the face. Sonic landed on his hands and pushed off backward, skidding to a stop on his feet. Then he curled up and began spinning in place. Raz tapped the brown band and willed the energy through both of his arms. When he felt ready, he waited for Sonic to make the first move.

Sonic rocketed toward Raz, who waited until the last possible moment to piston both fists forward, stopping Sonic dead in his tracks. Undeterred, Sonic seemed to make a bright red spring pop up out of the ground and used it to bounce high into the sky. Unwilling to give Sonic that much of an aerial advantage, Raz immediately jumped on the spring as well, shooting up to meet Sonic in midair, who had been preparing for another attack.

They exchanged blows in a flurry of fists, Sonic moving too fast for Raz to mount an offensive, Raz's defense too solid for Sonic to break through. Finally, their fists met and a small shockwave rippled out from where their fists impacted. Raz raised an eyebrow at the small wind that ruffled his hair and said, "It looks like you've been holding out on me."

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," Sonic replied, raising his own eyebrow. His leg looped around and down, and Raz's other arm came up to block it. Not planning to let Sonic use all of his limbs to get past his defenses, Raz headbutted the hedgehog hard, stunning Sonic temporarily. Raz grabbed Sonic's wrist and flung him downward, landing on one knee as Sonic smashed into the ground, leaving a small depression. Raz brought both arms up in an X shape as Sonic burst out of the ground and launched straight at Raz.

"Surely you can hit harder than this," Raz commented, and Sonic growled before pushing against Raz's arms even harder. Suddenly, Sonic dropped to the ground, and Raz jumped on instinct. He swung his foot down at the same time Sonic swung his up, and their ankles collided hard enough to jar both of them. Raz gritted his teeth and let himself drop, his knee landing dead center in Sonic's chest. The hedgehog let out a pained whoosh of air, and Raz smirked. "Because I certainly don't plan to hold back."

"Neither do I," Sonic replied, and his eyes flashed as he curled up around Raz's knee. Raz stood up immediately, which was a mistake. Sonic immediately shot up – still in a ball – and got Raz in the stomach, his forced momentum carrying them both into the air. When they'd gotten really high, Sonic said, "Your turn." Suddenly, his foot extended, catching Raz on the crown of his head.

The pounding in Raz's head was drowned out only by the pain of impacting the ground at high speed. He didn't have much of a chance to recover, since Sonic had plummeted into his stomach. Raz let out a huge gust of air, and black spots began to swim at the corners of his eyes. "Come on, surely you can do better than this," Sonic said mockingly. "Because I certainly am not holding back."

Raz tapped the turquoise, silver, and green bands on his arm and got up slowly, giving the impression that he was badly hurt. He lifted his head to look Sonic in the eye and said with a grin, "Neither am I." His hand shot out as he yelled, "Gravitational Blizzard Twister!" Wind and ice burst from his palm, catching Sonic up. Suddenly, Raz's hand glowed green, and the ice and wind seemed to compress on Sonic, tearing him up repeatedly inside of the equivalent of a vacuum-sealed snow globe.

Finally, Raz let the attack go and Sonic fell to the ground, breathing slowly. "Had enough yet? I got more," Raz said, and Sonic stood slowly. They both looked up; a Smash Ball had appeared. Sonic made another spring appear and rocketed towards it, while Raz tapped the orange and yellow bands and shot electricity and fire toward the Smash Ball.

Supersonic speed still isn't as fast as light-speed, and Raz's attack broke the Smash Ball nanoseconds before Sonic kicked it. Raz grinned as he felt rainbow light pouring into him, then raised an eyebrow as Sonic began to glow with the same light.

"Well," Raz said, and Sonic tilted his head to one side before stretching his arms out in a standing spread-eagle position. Seven gems appeared around Sonic, and the hedgehog seemed to absorb them. Sonic disappeared in a flash of light, and when he reappeared, he was golden in color and had red eyes. Raz had whispered, "Livewire," before the light faded, and now he was suffused with a dull golden-white glow.

"Your move," Sonic said, beckoning with one hand. Raz grinned and shot forward at speeds too fast to follow… except for Super Sonic, who leapt into the air and flew away. Raz gave chase, and Sonic arced up into the air, hovering there for a while until he suddenly shot back down toward the ground like a golden bullet. Raz shot up to meet him, and the force of their impact caused them both to ricochet like two objects that had hit each other at a slightly slanted angle. They immediately caught themselves and launched toward each other again, only to have the same thing happen; neither of them could land more than a glancing hit. They each upped their speed little by little, until the only thing that could be seen was a brief shockwave from every time they impacted.

Suddenly, they both stopped moving and simply stared at each other. Finally, Raz said, "Your move." Sonic nodded and shot toward him, only to impact Raz's fist and receive a massive shock to the face. Sonic's eyes rolled back in his head and Raz punched him again, sending what looked like a golden comet smashing into the ground.

Raz landed lightly as his Final Smash wore off and Sonic's quills faded back to blue. The hedgehog looked extremely weak, and Raz said, "Do you yield?" Sonic looked at him for a minute, then finally nodded before closing his eyes and slumping.

"Finish! Victor: Raz Hamon." Raz sighed and dropped to his knees, and offered his hand to the blue hedgehog. Sonic opened his eyes halfway, then grabbed Raz's hand, and they both vanished.

* * *

"Third battle, Tier C. Astor Hamon versus Wolf O'Donnell, leader of Team Star Wolf. Ready… Go!"

"Hope you're ready for this," Wolf said, crouching low to the ground and flexing his claws. Astor rolled his eyes and shifted his weight backward, waiting, weighing his options. _Wolf doesn't look to be too fast, so maybe I can…_ "Wolf Flash!" Wolf disappeared, leaving only purplish afterimages of him. He reappeared seconds later in front of Astor and smashed him upward before crouching and seeming to charge something. He yelled, "Fire Wolf!" and shot upward in a burst of flame.

Astor snorted, then swung Murasame down hard, and the tip of the blade collided with Wolf's face, effectively breaking his momentum. Astor flipped and kicked down, and Wolf flew toward the ground, though he caught himself and flipped lightly backward, landing on one knee as he looked at Astor, who had also landed on the ground. "Interesting," Wolf said before pulling out a gun with a nasty-looking claw extending from it. A green bolt shot from it, and Astor sidestepped it, not willing to find out what would happen if he got hit with it.

Astor held Murasame edge-downward and swung sharply, letting off a blast of air that shot toward Wolf. Wolf pulled out a small device and red light appeared around him before settling in a shield of sorts, and Astor's wave simply bounced off of it. "Like my Reflector?" Wolf taunted as Astor frowned. "Wonderful piece of machinery."

"True enough," Astor agreed pleasantly. "But does it reflect physical attacks as well?" He sprinted forward and made a simple strike against Wolf's Reflector. It fizzed brightly, but other than that, nothing happened. Astor grinned. "So it's a question of who tires out first, me of attacking or you of just sitting there hiding."

Wolf growled and deactivated his Reflector and took a swipe at Astor's face with his claws. Astor leaned backward, then had to double over on purpose to avoid a kick aimed at his midsection. He leaned to the side to dodge an uppercut, then did a backhand spring to avoid a sweeping ground kick. Finally, he got tired of dodging and caught Wolf's foot, which had been about to make a series of jabs at him in an attempt to overwhelm his reflexes and defenses. "You're not too bad," Astor commented, and Wolf laughed before bringing his weight to bear and dropping to the ground. He was heavier than Astor had expected, and Wolf swung his leg around forcefully, dragging Astor in a circle before releasing Wolf's foot.

Astor spun a couple of times, trying to reorient himself, before touching down lightly on the ground. Wolf grinned at him and yelled, "Wolf Flash!" He disappeared again, only to be jabbed in the neck by the handle of Murasame, then knocked to the side by a roundhouse kick to his temple.

"Not again, I don't think," Astor said delicately, and Wolf bared his teeth in a much more feral grin.

"Have it your way," Wolf said, then pointed upward. Astor looked, and there was a Smash Ball. He frowned at Wolf, who yelled, "Fire Wolf!" He rocketed upward, barely missing the Smash Ball. But he landed on a platform that was higher than the ground, and shot upward again. Astor threw Murasame, but Wolf broke the Smash Ball and then kicked Murasame away, and Astor ran to catch it.

Wolf laughed and pressed a button on his wrist remote and said, "Landmaster!"A huge tank descended from the sky. Wolf jumped in, and Astor realized that this could get very ugly very quickly. He jumped down under the platform that the tank had appeared on and ran. The tank seemed to just sink through the platform and began to lumber after him. Astor swore and heard something charging behind him. He dove to the side and barely missed being hit by a huge blast of light that came from the tank's cannon.

_I hope this thing doesn't stay for too long_, Astor thought as he dodged another shot from the cannon. As though the Landmaster had decided to heed his thoughts, it turned into crystal, and then disappeared, leaving Wolf standing there smirking. Astor straightened with a smirk of his own and said, "Looks like your lovely Landmaster isn't much for fuel efficiency."

"It doesn't need to be," Wolf said with a shrug. "I don't need it to beat you."

"It would've helped," Astor said before sprinting forward at high speed. Murasame flashed, and Astor said, "Dance of a Thousand Blades!" Wolf's vision may as well have gone black or silver, since all he could see was the glint of light off the blade that Astor swung repeatedly. Suddenly, Astor's elbow collided with Wolf's face, and the lycan fell on his back. Astor waited for the Announcer to say something, but nothing came.

Astor frowned down at Wolf, who was now trying to stand. Wishing he wouldn't have to do it, Astor punched him hard in the back of the head. Wolf fell forward on his face, and did not move. "Finish! Victor: Astor Hamon." Sighing, Astor grabbed Wolf's arm and they both disappeared. _It really is a good thing we can't bleed in this blasted tournament. Things like this are far too brutal to be tolerated for long, even in the name of sport._

* * *

"Fourth battle, Tier C. Raz Hamon versus Fox McCloud, leader of Team Star Fox. Ready… Go!"

Fox immediately shot forward, leaving crystallized blue afterimages behind him. Raz raised an eye and shifted his weight forward to counter Fox's momentum. He, Zelda, and Samus had been watching Astor fight Wolf, and Zelda had commented that Fox and Wolf fought almost exactly the same, save that Fox was faster and also much lighter. Raz had kept this knowledge in mind and was now about to see whether he had a weight advantage that he could press.

Fox stopped on a dime, his fist connecting with Raz's, and Raz grinned before drawing his arm back and thrusting it forward again. His open palm hit Fox's chest, and he tapped the yellow band and willed the electricity out through his hand. It coursed through Fox, shocking him badly before sending him flying. Raz immediately ran after him, jumping and landing hard on Fox's stomach, since the vulpine fighter fell so quickly, despite his light weight.

Raz had no patience to try and drag this fight out, so he stood up, tapped the green band, and then fisted his hands and slammed the knuckles together. Fox immediately cried out as he felt himself being forcefully pushed further and further into the ground. Raz asked, "Do you yield?" Fox made no reply in the affirmative like Raz knew he was able to, since he really wasn't pushing that hard.

"Do you yield?" he asked, and his fingers extended before he smashed his hands together. Fox cried out again, but still made no reply. Raz made one hand into a fist then held his left arm horizontally in front of him. He laid his right wrist against his forearm, then tugged it down slightly. Fox sunk a little bit more into the ground.

"Do you yield?" Still no reply. He tugged his fist down more. Fox sank into the ground deeper, and cried out again. Then, surprisingly, he began to curl up and shift so that his legs were underneath him. Raz tugged his fist down even further, and Fox doubled over as though he were praying. But he still straightened and even began to lift himself up on one knee.

"Do you yield? I will not ask again." Fox, putting forth a huge amount of effort managed to come into a crouch on his heels and looked up at him.

"You… really do… cheat," Fox said, and Raz narrowed his eyes.

"Because I have an advantage, and choose to use it? Oh, forgive me for using my abilities. What is your answer to my question? Beware your answer, because I have very little patience." _Is this really fair, though?_ He couldn't help but wonder. Sure, he had this ability, but did that mean he had to use it to end a fight before it really even started? _I don't want to drag this out._ But if he didn't use this gravity-altering energy, then would he still win? He'd assumed that he could win anyway, and fighting just prolonged the inevitable. But… what if this was keeping him from losing, making him fight unfairly?

_I didn't come here to play fair! Astor and I need to get to the top as quickly as possible, and Fox is only in the way!_ But at the same time, he couldn't help but think of how Samus might view him as a cheater if she was watching this, which he was fairly sure she was. _Ugh… What do I do? I don't want to drag this out, but… does that mean I'm cheating?_ He knew he shouldn't be worried about cheating, but…

He released the energy, and Fox exhaled heavily as the immense gravity suddenly vanished. "Fine," Raz said. "I don't need to manipulate gravity to beat you. Here I come, ready or not." Then he was off, punching and kicking, sometimes imbuing his hits with fire, lightning, or ice, sometimes making his fists as hard as stone, sometimes cutting at Fox with wind. Fox, still weakened from attempting to stand in extreme gravity, could only take the hits; he couldn't mount a reasonable defense against Raz's onslaught.

Finally, Raz dropped and did a sweeping circle kick, knocking Fox's legs from under him. Raz continued to spin, bringing his leg up to kick Fox in the middle of the back. At the same time his leg extended, he extended the rest of his body. His leg hit Fox in the back, causing him to bend slightly around it. Raz's elbow came into Fox's stomach, causing Fox to double over, his face plowing straight into Raz's fist. He bounced back from the impact momentarily, and Raz punched him hard in the stomach once, twice, then straightened and did a roundhouse kick at an angle that caused Fox to fall straight into the ground.

Raz watched Fox without pity for a moment, before his conscience got the better of him. He picked Fox up by his collar and looped an arm around his neck. Raz squeezed hard, and Fox struggled for a bit, before the lack of oxygen caused him to pass out. Looking at Fox's face, Raz suddenly found that he didn't find much entertainment in fighting in this tournament any more. _It's losing all of its "charm," if it even had any. I don't like this at all; I need to talk to Astor._ He and Fox both vanished.

* * *

"Astor," Raz said, grabbing his brother lightly by the arm. "I need to talk to you."

"Small world," Astor said with a smile, but went along agreeably enough. When they got to their room, Raz turned to look at Astor, who was watching him patiently.

"This tournament isn't fun anymore," Raz said without preamble. "This fighting until one fighter can't fight at all is getting ridiculous. It doesn't serve any purpose but humiliation. I mean, if you've noticed, Zelda, Sheik, Samus, and Toony are the only ones who can still bear to be around us. And Mario, but he's busy with Luigi and the tournament coordinator. Us saving them doesn't make them grateful; it makes things awkward."

"Are you suggesting we should've let them disappear, then?" Astor asked testily.

"No, of course not!" Raz snapped. "How could you think I would believe something like that?"

"I wasn't being serious," Astor replied. "But if you'd said something different, we'd have had to have it out right here and now. But anyway, what's your point?"

"My point is that we should leave this tournament before things get too far out of hand," Raz replied. "I fought Fox and nearly crushed him – _literally_ – to try and end the match more quickly. And then he accused me of cheating, and… I can't do this. I can't force people into submission because of some stupid tournament's rules."

"We were put here exactly to do that," Astor reminded him. "Why else would we have found Smash Manor the second we got out of that clearing?"

"I don't know," Raz responded. "But you can't honestly like beating people like this simply because it's the rules we have to follow to get to the top of a tournament that may or may not be run by our creator in the first place."

"Of course I don't like it," Astor said. "But there isn't much I can do about that. It's this or risk going up against something we aren't ready for. I'd rather beat people and have them be embarrassed than quit and possibly die before we regain our true purpose."

"Would Zelda approve of you beating people up to 'regain your true purpose'?" Raz asked, and Astor raised an eyebrow at him before narrowing his eyes.

"I fail to see what Zelda has to do with this," he replied, and Raz's jaw actually dropped.

"Are you being serious? This, what we're doing, this doesn't bother you? Doesn't the possibility of what could've happened to Falcon, Purin, Link, and Ganondorf bother you? You know that Zelda said that Lucario doesn't look like he used to, and he sure as hell is not a pleasant person to be around. What if that's what happened to the other four Smashers?"

"I don't know, Raz," Astor snapped. "I don't like it at all. But we have to do this. And furthermore, if we get to the top and it turns out that the coordinator _is_ our creator, then we can get the disappeared Smashers back! Has _that_ not occurred to you at all?"

Raz blinked. "No, I… I guess it hadn't. I just… looking at how badly I beaten Fox up just because I was being told to… It got to me, that's all."

Astor's voice was softer when he spoke again. "I know, Raz. I really don't like it, either; I came to the same conclusions you did after I fought Wolf O'Donnell. But we can't just change the rules of the tournament, can we? We have to fight until our opponent can't fight any more, right? There's nothing else we can do."

"Not right now, there isn't," Raz said. "But maybe there could be."

* * *

"Final battle, Tier C. Astor Hamon and Raz Hamon versus Luigi King, hero of the Waffle and Mushroom Kingdoms, and Peach King, crown princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. Ready… Go!"

"Good luck Peach, Luigi," Astor said. Peach nodded and smiled in reply, while Luigi simply threw a fireball. Astor rolled his eyes and twirled Murasame, making the fireball vanish as it came in contact with the gust the blade created.

"Let's end this quickly, do you agree?" Raz asked his brother, who nodded. They looked at Peach, who was plucking a vegetable out of the ground – which made them both raise their eyebrows – and Luigi, who was heading for… "A Smash Ball?" Raz said incredulously. "Already? What in the world is this?"

"Good question," Astor replied. Then, they both ran as Luigi broke the Smash Ball.

Luigi twirled and did a flip, and said, "Behold the Negative Zone!" A greenish circle spread out from him, and the sky turned dark except for that weird green light. Luigi was in the center of the circle, and his colors were inverted in an odd way: his skin was black, his mustache was white, his overalls were yellow, his hat and shirt were purple.

Astor didn't trust that "Negative Zone" at all, and resolved to simply stay far away from Luigi, instead focusing his efforts on Peach, who was now floating above them, vegetable in hand. She chucked it downward, and Astor swung Murasame, chopping the vegetable into pieces before it could touch them. He grinned up at Peach, who had hovered away, and said, "Nice try, but you'll need something a bit harder than a vegetable."

Peach smiled and reached down again. This time, she pulled out a dark blue ball with tiny golden-yellow spikes. "Will a Gordo do?" she asked sweetly.

"Depends on what a Gordo is," Astor replied. Peach in answer threw it and Astor brought up Murasame again. This time, however, upon contact with the sword, the Gordo immediately extended its spikes, piercing Astor in the face, neck, and chest. He was pretty sure he had a spike in his eye as well. He was so shocked he couldn't feel any pain.

"That was hardly nice," Raz mock reprimanded Peach, who played along and looked down abashedly. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to discipline you for that," Raz continued, and Peach raised an eyebrow and curtsied.

"Please, sir, do your worst," she said challengingly, and Raz grinned.

"I plan to," he said, tapping the turquoise and brown bands on his arm. He thrust his arm forward and cyclonic gusts of wind flew from around his fist as though they were unraveling from his wrist. The air quickly formed a column that hit Peach head-on, blowing her backwards, buffeting her with wind. Raz stomped on the ground and a small boulder separated from the earth underneath him. He kicked it at Peach, who pulled out a small creature with the top of a mushroom settled on top of its head. The boulder hit the creature, who immediately emanated a number of spores that sent the boulder flying in the opposite direction, toward Astor and Raz.

Astor was still paralyzed by the Gordo, though it was now flickering in and out of sight. Eventually, it disappeared entirely, and Astor could move again. He didn't think he'd ever quite get over that particular feeling. "Feeling better?" Raz asked in mock sympathy as he punched the boulder, shattering it effortlessly. "Good. Then maybe you can _help me out now_?"

Astor nodded and brought Murasame into a reverse grip before running toward Peach. He slashed with Murasame, and kept smacking Peach with the flat of the blade. She began to spin in the air, and Astor kept hitting her, making her spin in the air like a top.

Meanwhile, Raz had gone after Luigi, whose Final Smash had worn off. "Let's see how you fight," Raz said to Luigi, who beckoned to him with one hand. Raz jumped, and Luigi did the same. He chopped the air, and Raz blocked it with a forearm, raising an eyebrow in disbelief, as though to say, "That's _it_?" Luigi seemed to understand the unspoken question, and began kicking at Raz repeatedly. Raz blocked every kick.

"Are you serious? This got you to the second spot in Tier C?" Raz taunted, making Luigi angrier, which is exactly what Raz wanted; an angry Luigi meant a careless Luigi.

"You shut up, Hamon!" Luigi yelled, and then twirled rapidly, hitting Raz with his fists. "I'm still a better fighter than you!" Raz laughed and blocked Luigi's fists, then punched him hard in the nose. Luigi's head snapped back, and Raz punched him in the stomach. Luigi wheezed, and then Raz kicked him in the back of the head hard. Luigi was out cold before he impacted the ground.

"Pushover," Raz scoffed. Then, he looked up sharply. "Astor!" he called out. "Smash Ball!"

Astor looked up where Raz was pointing and saw it. He nodded and said, "Peach, be a dear and don't move."

"Not likely, hon," Peach replied with a laugh and began to run for the Smash Ball. She was about to smack it when Raz's fist smacked her first.

"You shouldn't have moved," Raz said with a shrug when Peach looked at him, affronted. Meanwhile, Astor had reached the Smash Ball and punched it, then slashed it with Murasame. The sword strike broke it, and Astor said calmly, "Great Gospel."

His body became suffused with a muted white light that even reached his eyes. Surprisingly, Raz began to glow as well. Peach threw a Bob-Omb that she'd plucked out of the ground at Astor, who watched as it headed toward him. It hit him and exploded, and when the smoke faded, he was standing there looking completely untouched, as though someone had not just thrown a bomb at him. Peach blinked, and Raz said, "It looks like we've been made invincible. Do you still want to fight?"

"Yes," Peach said immediately. "You aren't permanently invincible."

"We'll be invincible long enough," Raz responded, flicking a bolt of lightning toward Peach, who used her odd mushroom-headed creature to absorb it and send out spores again. Raz had counted on that, and smirked as Astor shouldered her in the back, sending her flying forward. She immediately caught herself by hovering in the air, but Raz had no intention of letting her stay afloat, unfortunately.

He flicked a fireball at her, noting that, whenever he used a Final Smash or Astor used this particular Final Smash, his energy no longer was controlled by bands. Whatever he wanted to form just… formed, no problem. She smacked the fireball with a tennis racket, and it flew back toward Raz, who flicked it with his finger. He and Peach got into a sort of game of tennis, but with a fireball rather than a tennis ball.

Finally, Raz said, "This is tiring." He grabbed the fireball and charged it with electricity and more fire, and flung it at Peach. As she was about to smack it, Astor swept her feet out from under her. Her legs flew up into the air, and she was still slightly suspended in midair when the electrically charged fireball hit her. It dissipated almost immediately, but she still looked badly burned, and her clothes were blackened. "Do you still want to fight now?" Raz asked, but Peach didn't reply.

Astor sighed and chopped both sides of her neck, and she slumped into his arms, unconscious.

"Finish! Victor: Team Hamon." Astor and Raz sighed as the white glow left them, and Raz went to go collect Luigi, though he really didn't want to.

"This was definitely one of our easier battles," Raz commented, and Astor nodded.

"Just be thankful we're almost done," Astor replied. "We're in Tier B now."

"We are," Raz said as the Smash symbols appeared around the four of them. "I hope they're ready for us."

* * *

"I grow tired of this. Nega-Falcon, Shadow Link. You are to neutralize the Worm, the Follower, and the Hamons. Do not fail me, or I shall be most displeased."

They made no reply. But then again, they really didn't have to.

* * *

**A/N:** Managed to get this in on time, and got more details in on most of the battles, even though there were five of them. Yay for me. Hopefully, you all will like it. We're moving right along, and some of the story elements are going to be wrapped up very soon. Stay tuned.

Reviews are always appreciated.

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	7. Chapter 5: B

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Super Smash Brothers, or any of the characters included in the franchise. That all belongs to Nintendo and Hal Laboratories, Inc., neither of which I work for. I'm simply a poor college student on break who had a nugget of an idea and decided to see what came of it. Additionally, I own nothing I took from other video games. None of it's mine, I just took it and threw it all together, I promise.

**Chapter 5: B**

"But, Lucario, it isn't my fault!" Luigi pleaded with the corrupted fighter, who simply looked at him with eyes that were lit, yet seemed dead as well. Lucario made no response, but it appeared that no response was necessary, since Luigi kept on talking. "It's those blasted Hamons, they keep winning, and I can't beat them! You have to fight at least one of them, and then you'll see what I'm talking about. But they just… they can't be beaten."

Lucario still did not respond, at least not verbally. He raised a paw and pushed at Luigi. A dark purple light emanated from the paw and shoved Luigi backward and out of the room. All this whining was completely unnecessary, in Lucario's opinion. Rather, it would be Lucario's opinion if the fighter was capable of having an opinion.

Regardless, Lucario lived by a simple rule: if you were up against an opponent stronger than you, then you found a more powerful ally. Whining and pleading and begging were just wastes of time.

* * *

"I haven't seen much of Luigi lately," Astor commented lightly.

Raz shrugged. "Does that bother you?" he asked.

"Mildly," Astor replied. "I mean, while it's nice not to have to put up with his childish antics and behavior, I do worry about him. A quiet Luigi could mean a plotting Luigi."

"You don't honestly think that Luigi poses any real threat to us, do you?" Raz asked incredulously, scoffing. "Please, that plumber couldn't hit the broad side of a barn hard enough to make a sound, let alone the two of us."

"It isn't fighting him again that I'm worried about," Astor snapped. Raz was about to respond, but was interrupted by a knock on their door. Looking at Astor with a raised eyebrow, Raz moved to open the door. When he did, he was surprised – pleasantly – to see Samus and Zelda standing in the doorway.

"Well, hello, ladies," Raz said, all charm and smiles, making Samus blush and Zelda roll her eyes mockingly. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your arrival?" Samus laughed and punched him lightly, and Raz rubbed his arm, hissing in fake pain. "You don't have to be so mean, you know," he said plaintively, stepping aside so that the women could walk into the room.

"You don't have to act so ridiculous, funny though it is," Samus shot back, and Raz stuck out his bottom lip in a mock pout.

"As fun as watching the banter between the two of you is," Zelda said dryly, "We did have a reason for coming, Samus. Remember?"

"Yes, of course I do," Samus replied, suddenly becoming all business. Raz and Astor unconsciously straightened in response, and Raz's mood sobered. "Zelda and I were told yesterday about suspicious activity in the forest by here that people like to use for training grounds," Samus said. "Falco, the one Lylatian you have yet to fight, is the one who told us about it, and said to tell the two of you, since what he saw… he thinks it had something to do with the two of you."

"What could that possibly be?" Astor asked, but before Samus or Zelda could respond, the Announcer informed Astor that he was going to fight Donkey Kong soon. "Never mind," Astor said. "If you could wait until I get back to tell us what's going on with this, I'd appreciate it." Samus and Zelda looked at each other before Zelda nodded slowly. Astor smiled at her as he disappeared, and the others sat in the room for a bit longer.

Eventually, Raz said, "We should probably go watch my brother's fight; I haven't seen much of DK since that first day we were here, and I'm curious to see how he fights." The three of them left the room, all thinking about Astor and DK, and all three using that thought to distract them from what Falco claimed to have seen.

* * *

"First battle, Tier B. Astor Hamon versus Donkey Kong, reputed King of the Jungle. Ready… Go!" DK immediately began winding his arm backward, as though he were charging something. Suddenly, he stopped swinging his arm and lumbered toward Astor, little puffs of smoke coming from his head. Astor's eyebrow rose in curiosity as he waited for DK to reach him.

The ape got there fairly quickly, and skidded on one leg while extending the other in a sort of sliding kick. Astor blocked it, though it still pushed him backward. He landed only to have to crouch under DK's giant hands clapping the air over him. _This is mildly amusing_, Astor realized as he jumped backward to dodge DK's headbutt. Truly, the ape's style of fighting was somewhat comical. However, as DK began to spin rapidly and slap Astor in a series of quick yet strong slaps, the swordfighter could begin to see how DK had become "King of the Jungle."

Astor went to one knee, waiting, then suddenly dashed forward, shouldering DK in the face. The ape leaned backward, trying to absorb Astor's momentum, and Astor braced his shoulder and used it as leverage to flip his body over so that his heel swung down and hit DK in the back of the head, sending the primate stumbling forward. Astor spun quickly and brought Murasame in a series of diagonal slashes across DK's back, aiming to keep him off-balance. It worked for a while until DK threw up his shield in anger.

He snarled at Astor, who blinked and then jumped backward when DK's shield came down and his hand moved to deliver a huge slap. DK began to lumber after him, eyes red. He suddenly stopped and gave a sort of feral grin before he began to slap the ground, sending shockwaves big enough to jar Astor and knock him into the air.

Astor fell back down to the ground in time to encounter DK's fist, which smashed into his stomach and sent him flying backward. He struggled to right himself as the world went dark around him. _Smash Ball!_ he thought, and that thought flipped him around, looking for the object that could help him win this. He couldn't find it until his back encountered something hard and smooth. He kicked behind him and encountered the object again, then spun and slashed the Small Ball. He sighed as the rainbow aura flowed into him, making him feel strong.

He landed on the ground and leveled Murasame at DK. The blade began to glow as the aura surrounding Astor flowed into it, and Astor said calmly, "Cosmo Memory." The sky turned pitch-black as a huge beam came and shot through the stage. Astor didn't blink as debris and wind came exploding from the impact. When the light finally faded, DK was on the ground, unmoving.

"Finish! Victor: Astor Hamon." Astor smirked in triumph as he walked over and placed a hand on DK's back and they both vanished.

* * *

"He certainly made short work of DK," Mario mused, and Raz, Samus, and Zelda nodded in agreement.

"I thought this tier was supposed to be more powerful than each tier before it?" Raz said, and Mario shook his head.

"That isn't at all how it's determined. The tier system is simply a way to measure how often the Smashers win a battle. That could be through the use of items, actual strength, pure skill, or excessive luck when it comes to breaking the Smash Ball."

"Oh," Raz said, and frowned.

"However," Mario continued, "Win percentage usually is determined by a number of factors, not the least of which is power. DK is no slouch when it comes to fighting. I suppose Astor simply overwhelmed him with that Final Smash of his, which was impressive."

"Speaking of which, how many Final Smashes do you all have?" Raz asked.

"I have one, Samus has two –"

"Had two," Samus interrupted, and Mario nodded.

"Samus had two, and Zelda has one," Mario amended as he finished his answer. "I've seen that you and Astor have far more than that, though, between the two of you."

Raz nodded. "It's odd," he said. "Every time we ascend to a higher tier, we get a new Final Smash. We've got four each, if I'm counting correctly. I've got Aerospark, Dragon Fang, Livewire, and Dragon Dive, which means that Astor's got four as well."

"You do certainly have a plethora of attacks to choose from, but I don't see much of a problem with it," Mario said with a shrug. Raz shrugged as well, though he had a much greater problem with it than Mario did. _Are all these Final Smashes remnants of the powers of Creation we had before our creator sent us here? _The answer was one Raz preferred not to elucidate, not without Astor. The ramifications would be… unbelievable.

* * *

"Second battle, Tier B. Raz Hamon versus Pit, general of the army of the Goddess Palutena. Ready… Go!" Pit drew out a bow and drew the string back as a light arrow appeared in his fingers, held straight by the two loose bracelets around his wrist. He released the arrow and it became a bright blue arrow-shaped streak of light that shot toward Raz. He jumped in the air, only to grunt in disbelief as the arrow's trajectory curved and followed him into the air. _Are you joking?_ he thought as he kicked the arrow away.

Pit did nothing but nock another arrow. Raz's eyes narrowed as he took a stance and waited. The arrow flew toward him, and he kicked the arrow back at Pit, who brought out a shining shield that deflected the arrow yet again. Raz growled in incredulity as he smacked the arrow in another direction entirely.

"Are you going to attack me directly, or just shoot pretty lights at me?" Raz demanded, and Pit jumped into the air and flew toward Raz. Just before he landed, he pulled on his bow and it split apart into two small swords, causing both of Raz's eyebrows to rise. Pit swung his swords in short strokes before bringing them to bear in a defensive stance. "Got any more surprises?" Raz asked before tapping the Wind band and thrusting his hand out. A gust of wind burst from his palm, and Pit swung his swords in circles quickly, effectively dissolving the concentrated wind.

"Fine," Raz said as he tapped the Earth band and used his hardened hands to block Pit's swords. "Let's see you dissolve something a bit more substantial." Raz ducked under a double sweep of the swords, then punched both hands into Pit's abdomen, sending the winged boy flying through the air. Pit's wings began to glow as he slowed in the air, then they glowed a bright blue as they grew in size and he began to fly in short upward bursts.

Raz tapped the Fire band and drew his hand back as Pit nocked another arrow. Just as Pit released his arrow, Raz said, "Pyre Arrow!" and unclenched his fist. The ball of fire that had been forming in front of his other hand promptly lengthened as it lanced toward Pit, hitting his arrow head-on in a surprisingly loud explosion. Thus began a battle to see how could launch more arrows the fastest. Pit had the advantage of being on the offensive, and mounted his offense from many different positions.

But Raz using so much of his energy on one task had created a sort of ambient aura around him that neutralized any arrows his own arrows didn't reflect.

After a while, Raz said, "Enough." His hands came into his center and fisted before he thrust them out. The aura he'd had solidified and expanded outward in a ring of fire that passed through Pit, stunning the angel long enough for Raz to tap the golden band on his arm. He smirked as he sped toward Pit before he could react. Raz could now mount his own offensive, though his was a lot more abrupt. Pit couldn't block against all of the punches and kicks, and suddenly was flung to the ground by an elbow in the back of his neck.

Raz landed on one knee as Pit laid on the ground facedown, slowly struggling to get to his feet. Raz sprinted forward, his speed still magnified, and kneed Pit in the side. The angel cried out in pain, the first sound he'd made in the entire fight, then fell to the ground again, this time on his side. He squirmed as Raz stood over him and asked him, "Do you yield, angel?"

Pit looked up at him and slowly nodded, and Raz reached out a hand that Pit grabbed as the Announcer said, "Finish! Victor: Raz Hamon."

* * *

"What are you talking about?" Astor asked Raz.

"I'm talking about why, at most, the other Smashers have two Final Smashes, while each of us has twice as many," Raz replied. "That doesn't strike you as odd?"

Astor shrugged. "Why should it? I mean, we _are_ direct products of the Creator. We had all the powers of Creation at our disposal, or, rather, I was Creation and you were Entropy. We deserve to get our powers back, wouldn't you say? It's owed to us because we had it and it was taken for no good reason."

"So you think we deserve it because we were wronged, because we're entitled to the powers our Creator gave us?" Raz asked, disgust coloring his face and his tone. Either Astor didn't notice or he didn't care, because he nodded. "I didn't think fighting Luigi would make you act like him," Raz said quietly, and Astor's jaw dropped, even as his nostrils flared.

Raz's head snapped to the side as Astor punched him. "How can you compare me to him?" Astor demanded. Raz straightened to look at his brother.

Before he answered, though, he punched Astor in the face. "Don't hit me like that again," he said quietly before continuing. "You're acting entitled, like you're perfect, like you never did anything to harm anyone."

"Because I didn't!"

"What about Purin?" Raz asked, and Astor flinched in spite of himself. "And Ganondorf?"

"What about you with Falcon and Link?" Astor demanded. "You killed them!"

"I never said that I didn't," Raz replied. "Astor, why are you acting like this? This… all of this anger, hitting me for no reason…"

"You insulted me," Astor said simply. "How else was I supposed to take an insult to my character?"

"The way you normally do," Raz shot back. "By acknowledging that maybe I'm not wrong. Because, believe it or not, you _aren't_ perfect, we _aren't_ entitled to anything, and you _are_ acting exactly like Luigi. Listen to yourself! 'We deserve to get our powers back'? 'It's owed to us because we had it and it was taken for no good reason'? Why don't you just come out and say, 'We deserve to get our powers back because I said so'?"

"Because that's not the same!" Astor said vehemently.

"It isn't?" Raz asked in mock surprise, crossing his arms. "Tell me, Astor, how is what you're saying any different from what Luigi was saying?"

"Because we're different from him! We had more power; we had all the powers of Creation! And we… we're entitled to get that power back because…" Astor trailed off as what Raz had said began to register with him. "I… I do sound just like Luigi," Astor said quietly, and Raz nodded. "I… I honestly didn't think about that. I don't know what's making me act like this. I guess maybe I'm just stressed over this tournament, and what Falco could have seen, and… I don't know."

Astor and Raz looked at each other for a moment before Astor finally said, "I'm sorry for hitting you. I had no right to, since you turned out to be exactly right."

Raz waved his apology away. "I hit you back, so we're even," he said with a grin. "Besides, we can hardly afford for you to be so distracted with another fight coming soon."

* * *

"How should I know why it didn't work?" Luigi asked dully. All vehemence and self-righteous indignation had left his voice by this time, and he sounded like he used to, albeit a lot more jaded and apathetic. "Did you really expect to be able to pit the Hamons against themselves? I give you credit for a truly diabolical idea, but you should've known better. I'm leaving now." He turned and shuffled slowly out of the room. Lucario let him go.

The Pokémon's eyes closed and the figure was before him. "You have done as you were told," the figure boomed. "Even if it did not work, we have made progress. Your next target is the one they call 'Toon Link'." Lucario did not respond save for to get up and leave the room as well.

* * *

"I can't find Toony," Zelda said, and immediately Astor and Raz were on their feet, and Samus as well.

"Where was the last place you knew he was?" Samus asked.

"Our room. He was getting his things together so that he could go train to fight you and Astor, Raz," Zelda replied, looking at the Hamon brothers. Astor and Raz looked at each other uneasily, then back at Zelda.

"We'll help you find him," Astor said, and Zelda smiled softly at him, making him blush lightly.

Raz rolled his eyes as Samus said, "I'll help look for him, too. Come on; let's go check the training grounds."

The four of them walked outside the Manor and headed for the training grounds, Samus walking next to Raz, and Zelda walking next to Astor. As they got closer, they could hear the sounds of fighting and Toony yelling. Whether he was yelling in pain or in triumph they couldn't tell, but they hastened their steps all the same.

The scene they arrived at was shocking and disturbing. Toony was indeed yelling in triumph, as his blade clashed with a black blade attached to a green handle that looked unsettlingly familiar to Raz. As they beheld who was wielding it, Astor had to brace Zelda, who had abruptly been unable to stand.

Toon Link was fighting against Link.

"Astor, have Zelda get Sheik," Raz said. At Astor's questioning look, Raz said, "Zelda obviously won't be able to fight this Link, and I'm hoping Sheik will have no such objections." Astor nodded and whispered something to Zelda, who stood and whispered something back. She twirled, then brought her hands down to her sides as her leg shifted back. Suddenly, Sheik was straightening and clenching his fists.

"Whoever did this to Link will pay," he said, and Samus, Raz, and Astor nodded in agreement. They whispered quietly, setting up their plan. They were galvanized into action when they heard Toony scream in what was definitely pain. Samus and Sheik took their agreed places as Astor and Raz climbed into two surrounding trees.

Samus took the glints flying through the air as her signal. As Link was standing over Toony with his perversion of the Master Sword poised to strike, six needles suddenly struck him in the back. It took him off-guard and startled him into inaction long enough for Samus to grapple him with the Paralyzer setting on her Plasma Gun. It wrapped around one of his wrists and began shocking him repeatedly, each jolt traveling through his body. Weirdly, he never made a sound.

Samus frowned as she ran forward, yanking Link toward her. When he got close enough, she kicked him into the air, and let the Hamon brothers take it from there.

Astor flicked Murasame, then jumped off the branch he was sitting on and passed his sword through Link, pressing against another tree across from where he'd jumped. Then, he jumped again and slashed again. This went on for a time, then he moved and fell to the ground, landing on one knee and looking upward. He rolled onto his back and bent both of his legs, then, in a move that would be comical under any other circumstances, pushed both legs up, kicking Link in the back and sending him flying back into the air. Strangely, he still made no sound of pain, shock, anger… Anything. He was silent.

Raz narrowed his eyes at the still-ascending fighter, and then tapped the one band he had yet to tap. It was the highest band on his arm, positioned near the shoulder, where an odd chillingly burning sensation had begun. Once he tapped it, it began to glow brightly, and he swore he could hear a chorus singing somewhere, though that may or may not be his brain supplying something he felt was appropriate.

He jumped from his own branch and stuck one leg out to stop Link's ascent, then twirled in the air and brought his other leg down, kicking Link back into the ground. Raz's hand began to tingle, and he thrust it down as a huge white burst of energy emanated from his palm, washing everything in brilliant, blinding white.

Raz managed to land on the ground unharmed, and when his vision cleared, he could see Link's body simply dissolving into shadow in the center of a big scorch mark on the ground in the shape of an X.

"What was that?" Astor asked Raz incredulously.

"I don't know," Raz replied with a shrug. "I just tapped the white band. I wonder why it made an X."

"Raz, I don't think that's an X," Astor responded slowly. "I'm pretty sure this is a cross. An equal-armed cross, but a cross nonetheless."

"Does that mean that whatever happened to Link made him… 'unholy,' somehow?" Raz asked with one eyebrow raised. "What in the world could be done to him to make him unholy?"

"I think we've finally got our answer to what happened to Purin, Link, Ganondorf, and Falcon," Samus replied in a dark tone, and Sheik, Astor, and Raz all looked at each other silently. "Get Toony so we can get him inside and recuperating," Samus said, and Sheik bent down and picked up the boy, who was unconscious.

"Ugh, this just got extremely ugly," Raz said.

"Especially because the way Link looks reminds me a lot of Lucario, and also, if things can be made unholy, they can be made holy in the first place. What sort of being would have that kind of power?" Astor muttered to him.

Raz's eyes widened. "The Creator. He… he did that to Link? He made him into something unholy? Something taboo?"

"Yes. And if Falcon, Purin, and Ganondorf are all like this as well, we just became that much more entrenched in the happenings of this tournament and against our Creator for doing something like this. We have to take him down. If this continues with other fighters that he could take through Lucario – assuming Lucario is Taboo like Link was – our Creator risks knocking the entire universe out of equilibrium."

"Our troubles just increased about tenfold," Raz grumbled, rubbing his face. "How do we take down the equivalent of a god?"

"Become gods ourselves, like we used to be."

* * *

"Final battle, Tier B. Team Hamon versus Zero Suit Samus and Lucario Ketchum, user of Aura. Ready… Go!" Lucario immediately charged a purplish ball of light in its hands and launched it at Raz and Astor. As the ball traveled straight at them, Astor moved out of the way as Raz tapped the yellow band and punched the ball of energy. The ball detonated, throwing Raz backward.

Astor would have helped his brother recover, but Lucario was running at him. The Pokémon stopped about ten feet from him and stared at him through darkened eyes. "Lucario," Astor said. "Are you responsible for what happened to the others?" Lucario did not answer, but Astor drew the same conclusion he would have had Lucario spoken.

"I don't know where they went or what you did to them, but you will pay for it," Astor said, flicking Murasame in Lucario's direction. Lucario still made no response save to thrust a fisted paw at Astor. Astor blinked, then made a sound of surprise as a force he couldn't identify pushed him backward. _That must be what Aura is_, Astor thought as he flipped in the air and skidded on his knees along the ground.

He swung Murasame at another ball of Aura that had been sent toward him. The ball was surprisingly solid, and Astor's reflexive blow just barely knocked it off-course. He growled and ran toward Lucario, swinging Murasame in a series of blows that Lucario either dodged or blocked with Aura inches from his skin. Frustrated, Astor took a swing at Lucario's head, then kicked upward hard when the Pokémon ducked. He gave a satisfied grunt as his kick connected with Lucario's chin, knocking him backward. Astor shouldered Lucario in his now-exposed torso and Lucario skidded backward.

Astor was about to attack again when a golden blur connected with Lucario, sending the Pokémon flying. The golden blur chased after Lucario immediately, and Astor registered that it was Raz attacking.

"This is for Toony and all the other Smashers," Raz said, his voice surprisingly calm and even for someone who was attacking Lucario faster than the other fighter could react. Raz's fists Lucario's chest, stomach, neck, face, and finally right in the equivalent of his solar plexus, knocking Lucario back. Raz flew after him at high speed, cocking his fist back to punch Lucario. Lucario flipped around in the air, then struck an odd pose. Raz struck anyway, only to be shocked as Lucario vanished. Suddenly, Raz felt something strike him in the middle of the back, and he flew into the ground, bouncing off of it yet still leaving a small crater.

Astor walked over to stand next to him, and the Hamon brothers looked up at Lucario, who was descending slowly. Raz tapped the golden band again and placed a hand on Astor's shoulder, and they both began to glow. Astor nodded at Raz, and the brothers ran in opposite directions, then running toward each other and hitting Lucario in a high-speed pincer attack.

Astor looped an arm around Lucario's neck and held him while Raz began to jackhammer punch him in any place his fists could reach. Lucario never made a sound, but his struggles gradually became less and less violent, and finally, he stopped moving altogether. Astor let go of Lucario, who flopped to the ground face-first and laid there.

"Get rid of him," Astor said. "We don't want to save him. Not only because of what he did to the others, but because he's been made into the same thing that Link was. There is no hope for him." Raz didn't like the way Astor was talking, but he found that he couldn't disagree. He tapped the white band, but this time he simply willed the holy energy to pool in his hand, to become something less destructive. He placed a hand on Lucario's head and the energy flowed from his palm to cover the downed fighter. The body glowed unbelievably bright as Raz drew back, and when it faded, Lucario's body was gone.

"I yield," came Samus's voice, and Astor and Raz looked at her, surprised; they'd forgotten she was there at all. "Lucario was the threat, and I have no interest in fighting either of you. Therefore, I yield."

"Finish! Victor: Team Hamon." Astor and Raz looked at each other, and then shrugged as a Smash Ball appeared. They broke it and waited as rainbow light flowed into them. "New Final Smash acquired. Astor Hamon: Nagareboshi. Raz Hamon: Catastrophe."

"Come on, then," Raz said as he grabbed Samus's hand. The three of them vanished, and the stage was silent as the sky dimmed. For a split second, however, one could see a sort of fog gathering, and a hissing sound could be heard that sounded almost…unnatural.

"The Hamon brothers must be taken down."

* * *

**A/N: **I'd apologize for taking so extremely long with this update but, to be honest, the few people who read this probably don't care. Also, I got sick of the story. It happens a lot when I take on multi-chaptered stories. I like writing them and being absorbed in them far too much to stop writing multi-chaptered fics, but... yeah. This story and all future stories are going to end up being paused at least once. Sorry. In any case, I am off right now to begin writing the next chapter, and it'll definitely be longer than this one, mostly because a lot of the extraneous elements are starting to be concluded. A few of them ended in this chapter already. Meh well, I'll stop babbling.

Reviews are always appreciated. :D

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